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Edgar Allan Po
Crispin Sa
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PREFACE.
To the few who love me and whom I love—
to those who feel rather than to those who
think—to the dreamers and those who put
faith in dreams as in the only realities—I
offer this Book of Truths, not in its character of Truth-Teller, but for the Beauty that
abounds in its Truth; constituting it true. To
these I present the composition as an ArtProduct alone:—let us say as a Romance;
or, if I be not urging too lofty a claim, as a
Poem.
What I here propound is true:—therefore it
cannot die:—or if by any means it be now
trodden down so that it die, it will “rise
again to the Life Everlasting.”
Nevertheless it is as a Poem only that I wish
this work to be judged after I am dead.
EAP 1848
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August 15, 2015 Crispin Sartwell
earlier in the year i did a series of entries on poe’s eureka, which was published in 1848 (text of the essay here). i have really basted in it
now, and am working toward some sort of illustrated edition with the artist jane irish. i was saying things
like ‘reminds me of kierkegaard, but i’m not saying it’s comparable to kierkegaard’, etc. now, however, i regard the thing with kind of unbounded
admiration, which i will express in the following terms.
human knowledge - including scientific knowledge - may come through careful observation/experimentation or plodding applications of logical principles
to things already known etc. but the real breakthroughs are intuitive, or poetical, or aesthetic, and he quotes kepler among others as saying just
that: i guessed these things. (cf einstein: there was little evidence for his biggest ideas when he put them forward: they were confirmed retroactively;
they came in flashes of aesthetic/mathematical intuition.)
there is no greater work in philosophy or in natural philosophy, in cosmology or in aesthetics, in the 19th century. i would say there is no
more important work, but i don’t actually believe that it had any influence, selling just a few copies. (one possibility: it might have leaked
into european physics via baudelaire’s translation?)
then he proceeds to blow you away by doing it himself: he gives you extremely clear statements of big-bang-big-crunch cosmology, the cosmological
principle, and the multiverse hypothesis. there are possible gropings toward dark matter, the curvature of space, black holes, and many other wild and
possibly true notions. now, if anyone else was putting anything like that down in the mid-nineteenth century, i would appreciate someone telling me
who it was. (he calls the method intuitive or poetical, but it also included reading all the science and philosophy coming out of europe, and poe read
the european languages; the intuitive part comes after absorbing all the available science).
[remark on the text with the image above: it represents a position that poe is ridiculing. there are no degrees of impossibility; something
either is or ain’t impossible. if it is impossible to imagine a limitless space, and impossible to imagine a limited space, they are exactly
equally impossible to imagine. that’s not the only spot where he sounds like a slash-and-burn analytic philosopher.]
eureka begins with a methodological essay, in the typically poean form of a letter from the future, found by poe in a corked bottle and
dated 2848. in a semi-successful and sort of half-assed satirical way, it attacks rationalism and empiricism, or aristotelian and baconian science,
on the grounds that the worst possible idea is to restrict methodologies before you even start your research. and he really attacks the
idea that there can be only two roads to truth, or some sort of synthesis of them (as in kant and hegel).
the big bang/expanding universe hypothesis is often attributed to georges lemaitre, in 1927. lemaitre groped much as poe did to name the origin: he
used the term ‘primeval atom’. poe uses ‘primordial Particle’. they conceive it on exactly the same terms. explanations run out for both when it comes
to what forces caused this particle, containing all the universe’s matter at an excruciatingly dense single point,to explode, but it did: and then matter
and perhaps space itself exploded outward in a sphere. eventually the force of this explosion is expended and the dominant gravitational pull for each
particle is back toward the center. then the thing crunches at an ever-accelerating rate, etc. after the first event, everything proceeds by regular physical
laws. the whole picture is in eureka, i tell you.
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entific treatise by someone who knows himself not to be a working astronomer or physicist, but who has assiduously studied the available writings of
those who are. it is fully, pointedly, rational, and systematically presents arguments and proofs.
now, there is a fair amount of religious language, but it is used to express physical laws and events. i’m not saying poe didn’t believe in god, but the god
he uses here is a deist god, or is explicitly identified with the physical laws of the universe. if the religious language was read out completely, it would
still work beautifully, but also there is a sincere undertow that betrays a certain profundity. understand that he’s writing in america in 1848, alright?
you’re going to have to do some translation.
i am going to do a long entry on his method and epistemology, which are extremely sharp and interesting. also i will just remark that the metaphysics
and the epistemology are similar to mine in entanglements (forthcoming). i think it is one of the great american philosophical essays.
one question that robinson is asking in the nyrb piece and that others have asked is whether it anticipates bang-and-crunch cosmology. oh yes it does.
but there is more. i don’t know why i’m always talking about physics when i don’t actually know very much about it. but some things are pretty frigging
obvious. so, consider the ‘cosmological principle’ in 20th c physics.
that is not to say that everything he says is true or that physicists have come to every single one of his results. for one thing, he does not have subatomic particles. but who did? there could be no such things by the definition of ‘atom’ from the ancients (the smallest indivisible bits). he thinks all
atoms are the same, for the universe is the utmost complexity generated by the most simple possible means (it is maximally beautiful in that sense).
but perhaps it will turn out that quarks and hadrons etc compose all atoms, or even that they themselves somehow consist of the same sub-sub-atomic
particles. also, he thought the universe was contracting rather than expanding at this stage. also his account of planetary formation was wrong, etc.
now, it will be more impressive to you that he anticipated einstein and hawking et al than that he anticipated me, but i have to find the latter impressive
too. he should be read as holding that knowledge is merely true belief, deleting the justification condition. he has a relational ontology and an ecstatic
vision of all objects as entanglements and of all things as in relation to all things (directly, by gravitational and repulsive physical forces). he centralizes
aesthetics in human inquiry, and holds aesthetic properties to be real properties of the universe. (going the other way again, he also gives a clear statement of the coherence theory of truth, which i do reject completely.) (and, to throw in a bit more criticism: the title is unfortunate, and the quality of
the writing is a mixed bag; poe’s writing is a mixed bag throughout - quite wonderful at times, at others overwrought, clotted, over-elaborate.)
he ends in an ecstatic positive pantheistic vision, reminiscent of emerson, which is extremely surprising, given that he ragged on the transcendentalists
mercilessly throughout his career. (the whole is an amazing combination of pointed rationality and epiphanic intuition.) i like this because - honestly
- poe was extremely dark, and came by that out of an incredibly difficult life. but it makes me glad too, for that positive vision was almost the last thing
he wrote before his death, passed out on the streets of baltimore.
January 29, 2015 Crispin Sartwell
more poesy
alright, i’m grappling fairly seriously with poe’s eureka. it is brilliant.
a few remarks about genre. there is evidently a theory abroad that it’s some kind of parody or satire of a scientific paper. not at all. he called it a “prose
poem”, which really is a joke with a point. it is a completely serious and extremely profound essay in natural philosophy. and it is a very serious sci-
In modern physical cosmology, the cosmological principle is the notion that the distribution of matter in the Universe
is homogeneous and isotropic when viewed on a large enough scale, since the forces are expected to act uniformly
throughout the Universe, and should, therefore, produce no observable irregularities in the large scale structuring over
the course of evolution of the matter field that was initially laid down by the Big Bang. (Wikipedia)
(then they go on, sadly, to define it in terms of observers. poe is aware that he is trying to describe the distribution of matter in the universe, not his
own or someone else’s mental images. i don’t figure he deserves a lot of credit for that; physicists’ mistaking their own discipline for psychology seems
like an extremely difficult mistake to make.) but anyway, not only does poe formulate it, he formulates it beautifully. and he is arguing for it on the
grounds of spherical expanding universe originating at an infinitely dense point of unity. in 1848. he calls what makes it bang a ‘divine volition’, partly
to signal that his own explanation runs out there. here is poe:
I mean to say that our solar system is to be understood as affording a generic instance of these agglomerations [other solar systems, galaxies, and so forth], or, more correctly, of the ulterior conditions at which they arrived. . . . We shall be inclined to think
that no two stellar bodies in the Universe -- whether suns, planets or moons -- are particularly, while all are generally, similar. Still
less, then, can we imagine any two assemblages of such bodies-- any two “systems” -- as having more than a general resemblance.
(It is not impossible that some unlooked-for optical improvement may disclose to us, among innumerable varieties of systems, a
luminous sun, encircled by luminous and non-luminous rings, within and without and between which,revolve luminous and nonluminous planets, attended by moons having moons -- and even these latter again having moons.) Our telescopes, at this
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point, thoroughly confirm our deductions. Taking our own solar system, then, as merely a loose or general type of all, we have
so far proceeded in our subject as to survey the Universe under the aspect of a spherical space, throughout which, dispersed
with merely general equability, exist a number of but generally similar systems.
Let us now, expanding our conceptions, look upon each of these system as in itself an atom; which in fact it is, when we consider it as but one of the countless myriads of systems which constitute the Universe. Regarding all, then, as but colossal atoms,
each with the same ineradicable tendency to Unity which characterizes the actual atoms of which it consists -- we enter at once
upon a new order of aggregations. The smaller systems, in the vicinity of a larger one, would, inevitably, be drawn into still
closer vicinity. A thousand would assemble here; a million there -- perhaps here, again, even a billion -- leaving, thus, immeasurable vacancies in space. And if, now, it be demanded why, in the case of these systems -- of these merely Titanic atoms -- I
speak, simply, of an “assemblage,” and not, as in the case of the actual atoms, of a more or less consolidated agglomeration: -- if
it be asked, for instance, why I do not carry what I suggest to its legitimate conclusion, and describe, at once, these assemblages
of system-atoms as rushing to consolidation in spheres -- as each becoming condensed into one magnificent sun -- my reply is
that mellonta tauta -- I am but pausing, for a moment, on the awful threshold of the Future. For the present, calling these assemblages “clusters,” we see them in the incipient stages of their consolidation. Their absolute consolidation is to come. (this is
at page 1323-24 of the library of america poetry and tales)
as explicitly as possible, he argues that the matter is roughly evenly distributed through the universe if you consider it at a large enough scale and so it
can be described mathematically, but if you zoom in to any region, you see radically uneven distributions of matter, each local region being unique.
January 26, 2015 Crispin Sartwell
like a lot of folks, i have always been fascinated by edgar allan poe. i kept returning to his criticism, though it’s a mixed bag. but he forms a good withering realist (!) foil for some of the woolly happy excesses of the transcedentalists. he thought the fads for spiritualism, water cures, and the sprawling
19th c. new age universe was amusing horseshit, notwithstanding his association with ‘the uncanny’. i want him to be a devastating precursor of my
three stooges of the apocalypse: twain, bierce, and mencken. all of those guys had poe on board, though i’m sure they had their reservations. what i
always wanted to find in poe, and always half-assedly missed - was some sort of statement of how he saw his own intellectual orientation, what he was
trying to do or show. i wanted something philosophical, in short. somehow until i read the marilynne robinson piece below, i missed eureka, possibly
because of its subtitle: “a prose poem”. ok ok i tend to steer clear of poetry, especially poetry of the 19th century.
but it is dedicated to von humboldt. he contrasts the positions of aristotle, bacon, hume, kant, bentham, and mill, for example. he quotes them. it is a
defense of imagination, intuition, and improvisation in all the paths of human inquiry, including the sciences, and it is a reasoned defense by a cosmopolitan intellectual who read everything. i am still grappling with the overall positions and structure of the argument, and i’ll have more to say about
these after i’ve read the whole twice.
but what i want to say at the moment about poe, robinson, and epistemology is this: we do wrong (i did wrong below) to contrast science and (say)
aesthetic or poetic or intuitive paths toward the truth. look poe was a literary person and he struggled toward these ideas out of that sort of material.
einstein was a mathematician, or whatever it may be, and he moved toward a (somewhat similar) set of ideas from that direction. but poe’s technique
actually has rigorous applications of reason all over it, while einstein - this is a commonplace - is engaged in acts of imagination, intuition: an aesthetic
of beauty. these things are integrated on the ground at the most fertile moments. like a lot of people for a couple of hundred years, poe’s quite working
on lucretian-newtonian lines. and i think lucretius lurks in the background not only as having the right sort of universe, but as doing poetic science.
and if we viewed einstein as emerging in that same history, we’d have a point.
one reason to delete the justification condition on knowledge is that it’s always trying to foreclose on the paths to truth a priori. i don’t think we can tell
now what all the paths may be, and i don’t think we’re sufficiently appreciative of the many different ways that people have found the truth, or the fact
that these are always working in combination.
in general, we need to destroy this obsessive contrast between reason and its others, which gets stamped in everything from star trek to brain science
(where your executive regions are contrasted to your amygdala or whatever). this really is a theme of poe’s fiction and poetry. we’ll be doing a lot better
science and a lot better prose poetry once we throw these distinctions into chaos.
the figure of poe is a symbol of the reason-beast dualism: he has become a mere study in pathology, an interesting addict, as also an arch-romantic,
an american baudelaire. it’s all supposed to be darkside, a spiralling tumble into hallcination. but it takes about a second with poe’s criticism to realize
that’s wrong, and as robinson points out, the stories often resolve morally or are emblems of a moral crisis and emblems of its resolution. or really, it’s
an oscillation in poe that at its best shows a resolution if not a harmony.
honestly, the thing is a fairly straightforward philosophical essay, and i think the ‘prose poem’ thing is ironic. it’s playful and triply ironic and such; i
might compare its tone (and also a number of its positions) provisionally to kierkegaard’s, emerging at the same moment (though i am not putting it
on a par with sk). for philosophy, it’s pretty literary. also its withering and almost self-ridiculing tone very much reminds me of bierce. he’s aware of his
own pretentiousness as he writes; he’s sorry that he’s doing philosophy, but here it is. there are many jokes.
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January 24, 2015 Crispin Sartwell
poe, marilynne robinson, and k=tb
marilynne robinson’s essay on edgar allan poe in this month’s nyrb is profound. here’s an example of the motivations underlying my view that knowledgeis merely believing the truth, and does not require any particular sorts of reasons or justifications:
Poe’s mind was by no means commonplace. In the last year of his life he wrote a prose poem, Eureka, which would have
established this fact beyond doubt—if it had not been so full of intuitive insight that neither his contemporaries nor subsequent generations, at least until the late twentieth century,could make any sense of it. Its very brilliance made it an object of
ridicule, an instance of affectation and delusion, and so it is regarded to this day among readers and critics who are not at all
abreast of contemporary physics. Eureka describes the origins of the universe in a single particle, from which “radiated” the
atoms of which all matter is made. Minute dissimilarities of size and distribution among these atoms meant that the effects of
gravity caused them to accumulate as matter, forming the physical universe.
This by itself would be a startling anticipation of modern cosmology, if Poe had not also drawn striking conclusions from it,
for example that space and “duration” are one thing, that there might be stars that emit no light, that there is a repulsive force
that in some degree counteracts the force of gravity that there could be any number of universes with different laws simultaneous with ours, that our universe might collapse to its original state and another universe erupt from the particle it would
have become, that our present universe may be one in a series.
All this is perfectly sound as observation, hypothesis, or speculation by the lights of science in the twenty-first century. And
of course Poe had neither evidence nor authority for any of it. It was the product, he said, of a kind of aesthetic reasoning—
therefore, he insisted, a poem. He was absolutely sincereabout the truth of the account he had made of cosmic origins, and he
was ridiculed for his sincerity. Eureka is important because it indicates the scale and the seriousness of Poe’s thinking, and its
remarkable integrity. It demonstrates his use of his aesthetic sense as a particularly rigorous method of inquiry.
right: aesthetic reasoning. might lead you very wrong. but it might lead you very right. and if you think that aesthetics isn’t central to science or reason
or practices of inquiry or justification, i don’t think you’ve been watching!
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EUREKA: A Prose Poem
Edgar Allan Poe
AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE
Whirling on the heel
EUREKA: Edgar Allan Poe (AN ESSAY ON THE MATERIAL AND
SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE) with very profound respect this work is dedcated to Alexander Von Humboldt
ABRIDGED with illustrations by Jane Irish
It is with humility really unassumed—it is with a sentiment even of
awe—that I pen the opening sentence of this work: for of all conceivable
subjects I approach the reader with the most solemn—the most
comprehensive—the most difficult—the most august.
What terms shall I find sufficiently simple in their sublimity—
sufficiently sublime in their simplicity—for the mere enunciation of my
theme?
I design to speak of the Physical, Metaphysical and Mathematical—
of the Material and Spiritual Universe:—of its Essence, its Origin,
its Creation, its Present Condition and its Destiny. I shall be so rash,
moreover, as to challenge the conclusions, and thus, in effect, to question
the sagacity, of many of the greatest and most justly reverenced of men.
In the beginning, let me as distinctly as possible announce—
not the theorem which I hope to demonstrate—for, whatever the
mathematicians may assert, there is, in this world at least, no such thing
as demonstration—but the ruling idea which, throughout this volume, I
shall be continually endeavoring to suggest.
My general proposition, then, is this:—In the Original Unity of the First
Thing lies the Secondary Cause of All Things, with the Germ of their
Inevitable Annihilation.
In illustration of this idea, I propose to take such a survey of the
Universe that the mind may be able really to receive and to perceive an
individual impression.
He who from the top of Ætna casts his eyes leisurely around, is affected chiefly by the extent and
diversity of the scene. Only by a rapid whirling on
his heel could he hope to comprehend the panorama in the sublimity of its oneness.
But as, on the summit of Ætna, no man has thought of whirling on
his heel, so no man has ever taken into his brain the full uniqueness of
the prospect; and so, again, whatever considerations lie involved in this
uniqueness, have as yet no practical existence for mankind.
I do not know a treatise in which a survey of the Universe—using the
word in its most comprehensive and only legitimate acceptation—is
taken at all:—and it may be as well here to mention that by the term
“Universe,” wherever employed without qualification in this essay, I
mean to designate the utmost conceivable expanse of space, with all
things, spiritual and material, that can be imagined to exist within the
compass of that expanse. In speaking of what is ordinarily implied by the
expression, “Universe,” I shall take a phrase of limitation—“the Universe
of stars.” Why this distinction is considered necessary, will be seen in the
sequel.
But even of treatises on the really limited, although always assumed
as the unlimited, Universe of stars, I know none in which a survey,
even of this limited Universe, is so taken as to warrant deductions
from its individuality. The nearest approach to such a work is made in
the “Cosmos” of Alexander Von Humboldt. He presents the subject,
however, not in its individuality but in its generality. His theme, in its last
result, is the law of each portion of the merely physical Universe, as this
law is related to the laws of every other portion of this merely physical
Universe. His design is simply synœretical. In a word, he discusses the
universality of material relation, and discloses to the eye of Philosophy
whatever inferences have hitherto lain hidden behind this universality.
But however admirable be the succinctness with which he has treated
each particular point of his topic, the mere multiplicity of these points
occasions, necessarily, an amount of detail, and thus an involution of
idea, which precludes all individuality of impression.
It seems to me that, in aiming at this latter effect, and, through it, at the
consequences—the conclusions—the suggestions—the speculations—
or, if nothing better offer itself the mere guesses which may result from
it—we require something like a mental gyration on the heel. We need
so rapid a revolution of all things about the central point of sight that,
while the minutiæ vanish altogether, even the more conspicuous objects
become blended into one. Among the vanishing minutiæ, in a survey
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Eagle in Flight
of this kind, would be all exclusively terrestrial matters. The Earth
would be considered in its planetary relations alone. A man, in this
view, becomes mankind; mankind a member of the cosmical family of
Intelligences.
And now, before proceeding to our subject proper, let me beg the
reader’s attention to an extract or two from a somewhat remarkable
letter, which appears to have been found corked in a bottle and
floating on the Mare Tenebrarum—an ocean well described by the
Nubian geographer, Ptolemy Hephestion, but little frequented in
modern days unless by the Transcendentalists and some other divers
for crotchets. The date of this letter, I confess, surprises me even more
particularly than its contents; for it seems to have been written in the
year two thousand eight hundred and forty-eight. As for the passages I
am about to transcribe, they, I fancy, will speak for themselves.
“Do you know, my dear friend,” says the writer, addressing, no doubt,
a contemporary—“Do you know that it is scarcely more than eight
or nine hundred years ago since the metaphysicians first consented
to relieve the people of the singular fancy that there exist but two
practicable roads to Truth? Believe it if you can! It appears, however,
that long, long ago, in the night of Time, there lived a Turkish
philosopher called Aries and surnamed Tottle.” [Here, possibly,
the letter-writer means Aristotle; the best names are wretchedly
corrupted in two or three thousand years.] “The fame of this great
man depended mainly upon his demonstration that sneezing is a
natural provision, by means of which over-profound thinkers are
enabled to expel superfluous ideas through the nose; but he obtained
a scarcely less valuable celebrity as the founder, or at all events as the
principal propagator, of what was termed the deductive or à priori
philosophy. He started with what he maintained to be axioms, or
self-evident truths:—and the now well understood fact that no truths
are self-evident, really does not make in the slightest degree against
his speculations:—it was sufficient for his purpose that the truths in
question were evident at all. From axioms he proceeded, logically, to
results. His most illustrious disciples were one Tuclid, a geometrician,”
[meaning Euclid] “and one Kant, a Dutchman, the originator of that
species of Transcendentalism which, with the change merely of a C for
a K, now bears his peculiar name.
“Well, Aries Tottle flourished supreme, until the advent of one Hog,
surnamed ‘the Ettrick shepherd,’ who preached an entirely different
system, which he called the à posteriori or inductive. His plan referred
altogether to sensation. He proceeded by observing, analyzing, and
classifying facts—instantiæ Naturæ, as they were somewhat affectedly
called—and arranging them into general laws. In a word, while the mode
of Aries rested on noumena, that of Hog depended on phenomena;
and so great was the admiration excited by this latter system that, at its
first introduction, Aries fell into general disrepute. Finally, however, he
recovered ground, and was permitted to divide the empire of Philosophy
with his more modern rival:—the savans contenting themselves with
proscribing all other competitors, past, present, and to come; putting an
end to all controversy on the topic by the promulgation of a Median law,
to the effect that the Aristotelian and Baconian roads are, and of right
ought to be, the solo possible avenues to knowledge:—‘Baconian,’ you
must know, my dear friend,” adds the letter-writer at this point, “was an
adjective invented as equivalent to Hog-ian, and at the same time more
dignified and euphonious.
“Now I do assure you most positively”—proceeds the epistle—“that
I represent these matters fairly; and you can easily understand how
restrictions so absurd on their very face must have operated, in those
days, to retard the progress of true Science, which makes its most
important advances—as all History will show—by seemingly intuitive
leaps.
These ancient ideas confined investigation to
crawling; and I need not suggest to you that
crawling, among varieties of locomotion, is a
very capital thing of its kind;—but because the
tortoise is sure of foot, for this reason must we
clip the wings of the eagles?
For many centuries, so great was the infatuation, about Hog especially,
that a virtual stop was put to all thinking, properly so called. No man
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dared utter a truth for which he felt himself indebted to his soul alone.
It mattered not whether the truth was even demonstrably such; for the
dogmatizing philosophers of that epoch regarded only the road by which
it professed to have been attained. The end, with them, was a point of no
moment, whatever:—‘the means!’ they vociferated—‘let us look at the
means!’—and if, on scrutiny of the means, it was found to come neither
under the category Hog, nor under the category Aries (which means
ram), why then the savans went no farther, but, calling the thinker a fool
and branding him a ‘theorist,’ would never, thenceforward, have any
thing to do either with him or with his truths.
“Now, my dear friend,” continues the letter-writer, “it cannot be
maintained that by the crawling system, exclusively adopted, men would
arrive at the maximum amount of truth, even in any long series of ages;
for the repression of imagination was an evil not to be counterbalanced
even by absolute certainty in the snail processes. But their certainty was
very far from absolute. The error of our progenitors was quite analogous
with that of the wiseacre who fancies he must necessarily see an object
the more distinctly, the more closely he holds it to his eyes. They blinded
themselves, too, with the impalpable, titillating Scotch snuff of detail; and
thus the boasted facts of the Hog-ites were by no means always facts—a
point of little importance but for the assumption that they always were.
The vital taint, however, in Baconianism—its most lamentable fount of
error—lay in its tendency to throw power and consideration into the
hands of merely perceptive men—of those inter-Tritonic minnows, the
microscopical savans—the diggers and pedlers of minute facts, for the
most part in physical science—facts all of which they retailed at the same
price upon the highway; their value depending, it was supposed, simply
upon the fact of their fact, without reference to their applicability or
inapplicability in the development of those ultimate and only legitimate
facts, called Law.
“Than the persons”—the letter goes on to say—“Than the persons
thus suddenly elevated by the Hog-ian philosophy into a station for
which they were unfitted—thus transferred from the sculleries into
the parlors of Science—from its pantries into its pulpits—than these
individuals a more intolerant—a more intolerable set of bigots and
tyrants never existed on the face of the earth. Their creed, their text and
their sermon were, alike, the one word ‘fact’—but, for the most part,
even of this one word, they knew not even the meaning. On those who
ventured to disturb their facts with the view of putting them in order
and to use, the disciples of Hog had no mercy whatever. All attempts
at generalization were met at once by the words ‘theoretical,’ ‘theory,’
‘theorist’—all thought, to be brief, was very properly resented as a
personal affront to themselves. Cultivating the natural sciences to the
exclusion of Metaphysics, the Mathematics, and Logic, many of these
Bacon-engendered philosophers—one-idead, one-sided and lame of a
leg—were more wretchedly helpless—more miserably ignorant, in view of
all the comprehensible objects of knowledge, than the veriest unlettered
hind who proves that he knows something at least, in admitting that he
knows absolutely nothing.
“Nor had our forefathers any better right to talk about certainty, when
pursuing, in blind confidence, the à priori path of axioms, or of the Ram.
At innumerable points this path was scarcely as straight as a ram’s-horn.
The simple truth is, that the Aristotelians erected their castles upon a
basis far less reliable than air; for no such things as axioms ever existed
or can possibly exist at all. This they must have been very blind, indeed,
not to see, or at least to suspect; for, even in their own day, many of their
long-admitted ‘axioms’ had been abandoned:—‘ex nihilo nihil fit,’ for
example, and a ‘thing cannot act where it is not,’ and ‘there cannot be
antipodes,’ and ‘darkness cannot proceed from light.’ These and numerous
similar propositions formerly accepted, without hesitation, as axioms,
or undeniable truths, were, even at the period of which I speak, seen to
be altogether untenable:—how absurd in these people, then, to persist
in relying upon a basis, as immutable, whose mutability had become so
repeatedly manifest!
“But, even through evidence afforded by themselves against themselves,
it is easy to convict these à priori reasoners of the grossest unreason—it
is easy to show the futility—the impalpability of their axioms in general. I
have now lying before me”—it will be observed that we still proceed with
the letter—“I have now lying before me a book printed about a thousand
years ago. Pundit assures me that it is decidedly the cleverest ancient
work on its topic, which is ‘Logic.’ The author, who was much esteemed
in his day, was one Miller, or Mill; and we find it recorded of him, as a
point of some importance, that he rode a mill-horse whom he called
Jeremy Bentham:—but let us glance at the volume itself!
“Ah!—‘Ability or inability to conceive,’ says Mr. Mill very properly, ‘is
in no case to be received as a criterion of axiomatic truth.’ Now, that
this is a palpable truism no one in his senses will deny. Not to admit
the proposition, is to insinuate a charge of variability in Truth itself,
whose very title is a synonym of the Steadfast. If ability to conceive
be taken as a criterion of Truth, then a truth to David Hume would
very seldom be a truth to Joe; and ninety-nine hundredths of what is
undeniable in Heaven would be demonstrable falsity upon Earth. The
proposition of Mr. Mill, then, is sustained. I will not grant it to be an
axiom; and this merely because I am showing that no axioms exist; but,
with a distinction which could not have been cavilled at even by Mr.
Mill himself, I am ready to grant that, if an axiom there be, then the
proposition of which we speak has the fullest right to be considered an
axiom—that no more absolute axiom is—and, consequently, that any
subsequent proposition which shall conflict with this one primarily
advanced, must be either a falsity in itself—that is to say no axiom—
or, if admitted axiomatic, must at once neutralize both itself and its
predecessor.
“And now, by the logic of their own propounder, let us proceed to test
any one of the axioms propounded. Let us give Mr. Mill the fairest of
play. We will bring the point to no ordinary issue. We will select for
investigation no common-place axiom—no axiom of what, not the less
preposterously because only impliedly, he terms his secondary class—as
if a positive truth by definition could be either more or less positively
a truth:—we will select, I say, no axiom of an unquestionability so
questionable as is to be found in Euclid. We will not talk, for example,
about such propositions as that two straight lines cannot enclose a space,
or that the whole is greater than any one of its parts. We will afford the
logician every advantage. We will come at once to a proposition which
he regards as the acme of the unquestionable—as the quintessence of
axiomatic undeniability. Here it is:—‘Contradictions cannot both be
true—that is, cannot cöexist in nature.’
Here Mr. Mill means, for instance,—and I give the most forcible
instance conceivable—that a tree must be either a tree or not a tree—that
it cannot be at the same time a tree and not a tree:—all which is quite
reasonable of itself and will answer remarkably well as an axiom, until we
bring it into collation with an axiom insisted upon a few pages before—in
other words words which I have previously employed—until we test it by
the logic of its own propounder
‘A tree,’ Mr. Mill asserts, ‘must be either a tree or not
a tree.’ Very well:—and now let me ask him, why.
To this little query there is but one response:—I
defy any man living to invent a second. The sole
answer is this:—‘Because we find it impossible
to conceive that a tree can be any thing else than
a tree or not a tree.’ This, I repeat, is Mr. Mill’s
sole answer:—he will not pretend to suggest another:—and yet, by his own showing, his answer
is clearly no answer at all; for has he not already
required us to admit, as an axiom, that ability or
inability to conceive is in no case to be taken as a
criterion of axiomatic truth? Thus all—absolutely
all his argumentation is at sea without a rudder.
Let it not be urged that an exception from the general rule is to be made, in cases where the ‘impossibility to conceive’ is so peculiarly great as when
we are called upon to conceive a tree both a tree
and not a tree.
8
A banyon tree
9
Let no attempt, I say, be made at urging this sotticism; for, in the
first place, there are no degrees of ‘impossibility,’ and thus no one
impossible conception can be more peculiarly impossible than another
impossible conception:—in the second place, Mr. Mill himself, no
doubt after thorough deliberation, has most distinctly, and most
rationally, excluded all opportunity for exception, by the emphasis of
his proposition, that, in no case, is ability or inability to conceive, to be
taken as a criterion of axiomatic truth:—in the third place, even were
exceptions admissible at all, it remains to be shown how any exception
is admissible here. That a tree can be both a tree and not a tree, is
an idea which the angels, or the devils, may entertain, and which no
doubt many an earthly Bedlamite, or Transcendentalist, does.
“Now I do not quarrel with these ancients,” continues the letterwriter, “so much on account of the transparent frivolity of their logic—
which, to be plain, was baseless, worthless and fantastic altogether—as
on account of their pompous and infatuate proscription of all other
roads to Truth than the two narrow and crooked paths—the one
of creeping and the other of crawling—to which, in their ignorant
perversity, they have dared to confine the Soul—the Soul which loves
nothing so well as to soar in those regions of illimitable intuition
which are utterly incognizant of ‘path.’
“By the bye, my dear friend, is it not an evidence of the mental slavery
entailed upon those bigoted people by their Hogs and Rams, that
in spite of the eternal prating of their savans about roads to Truth,
none of them fell, even by accident, into what we now so distinctly
perceive to be the broadest, the straightest and most available of all
mere roads—the great thoroughfare—the majestic highway of the
Consistent? Is it not wonderful that they should have failed to deduce
from the works of God the vitally momentous consideration that
a perfect consistency can be nothing but an absolute truth? How
plain—how rapid our progress since the late announcement of this
proposition! By its means, investigation has been taken out of the
hands of the ground-moles, and given as a duty, rather than as a task,
to the true—to the only true thinkers—to the generally-educated
men of ardent imagination. These latter—our Keplers—our Laplaces—
‘speculate’—‘theorize’—these are the terms—can you not fancy the shout
of scorn with which they would be received by our progenitors, were it
possible for them to be looking over my shoulders as I write? The Keplers,
I repeat, speculate—theorize—and their theories are merely corrected—
reduced—sifted—cleared, little by little, of their chaff of inconsistency—
until at length there stands apparent an unencumbered Consistency—a
consistency which the most stolid admit—because it is a consistency—to
be an absolute and an unquestionable Truth.
“I have often thought, my friend, that it must have puzzled these
dogmaticians of a thousand years ago, to determine, even, by which of
their two boasted roads it is that the cryptographist attains the solution
of the more complicate cyphers—or by which of them Champollion
guided mankind to those important and innumerable truths which, for
so many centuries, have lain entombed amid the phonetical hieroglyphics
of Egypt. In especial, would it not have given these bigots some trouble to
determine by which of their two roads was reached the most momentous
and sublime of all their truths—the truth—the fact of gravitation?
Newton deduced it from the laws of Kepler. Kepler admitted that these
laws he guessed—these laws whose investigation disclosed to the greatest
of British astronomers that principle, the basis of all (existing) physical
principle, in going behind which we enter at once the nebulous kingdom
of Metaphysics. Yes!—these vital laws Kepler guessed—that is to say, he
imagined them. Had he been asked to point out either the deductive
or inductive route by which he attained them, his reply might have
been—‘I know nothing about routes—but I do know the machinery of
the Universe. Here it is. I grasped it with my soul—I reached it through
mere dint of intuition.’ Alas, poor ignorant old man! Could not any
metaphysician have told him that what he called ‘intuition’ was but
the conviction resulting from deductions or inductions of which the
processes were so shadowy as to have escaped his consciousness, eluded
his reason, or bidden defiance to his capacity of expression? How great
a pity it is that some ‘moral philosopher’ had not enlightened him about
all this! How it would have comforted him on his death-bed to know
that, instead of having gone intuitively and thus unbecomingly, he had,
in fact, proceeded decorously and legitimately—that is to say Hog-ishly,
or at least Ram-ishly—into the vast halls where lay gleaming, untended,
and hitherto untouched by mortal hand—unseen by mortal eye—the
imperishable and priceless secrets of the Universe!
“Yes, Kepler was essentially a theorist; but this title, now of so much
sanctity, was, in those ancient days, a designation of supreme contempt.
It is only now that men begin to appreciate that divine old man—to
sympathize with the prophetical and poetical rhapsody of his evermemorable words. For my part,” continues the unknown correspondent,
“I glow with a sacred fire when I even think of them, and feel that I
shall never grow weary of their repetition:—in concluding this letter,
let me have the real pleasure of transcribing them once again:—‘I care
not whether my work be read now or by posterity. I can afford to wait a
century for readers when God himself has waited six thousand years for
an observer. I triumph. I have stolen the golden secret of the Egyptians. I
will indulge my sacred fury.’”
Here end my quotations from this very unaccountable and, perhaps,
somewhat impertinent epistle; and perhaps it would be folly to comment,
in any respect, upon the chimerical, not to say revolutionary, fancies
of the writer—whoever he is—fancies so radically at war with the wellconsidered and well-settled opinions of this age. Let us proceed, then, to
our legitimate thesis, The Universe.
This thesis admits a choice between two modes of discussion:—We may
ascend or descend. Beginning at our own point of view—at the Earth
on which we stand—we may pass to the other planets of our system—
thence to the Sun—thence to our system considered collectively—and
thence, through other systems, indefinitely outwards; or, commencing
on high at some point as definite as we can make it or conceive it, we
may come down to the habitation of Man. Usually—that is to say, in
ordinary essays on Astronomy—the first of these two modes is, with
certain reservation, adopted:—this for the obvious reason that astronomical
facts, merely, and principles, being the object, that object is best fulfilled in
stepping from the known because proximate, gradually onward to the point
where all certitude becomes lost in the remote. For my present purpose,
however,—that of enabling the mind to take in, as if from afar and at one
glance, a distinct conception of the individual Universe—it is clear that a
descent to small from great—to the outskirts from the centre (if we could
establish a centre)—to the end from the beginning (if we could fancy a
beginning) would be the preferable course, but for the difficulty, if not
impossibility, of presenting, in this course, to the unastronomical, a picture
at all comprehensible in regard to such considerations as are involved in
quantity—that is to say, in number, magnitude and distance.
Now, distinctness—intelligibility, at all points, is a primary feature in my
general design. On important topics it is better to be a good deal prolix
than even a very little obscure. But abstruseness is a quality appertaining
to no subject per se. All are alike, in facility of comprehension, to him
who approaches them by properly graduated steps. It is merely because a
stepping-stone, here and there, is heedlessly left unsupplied in our road to
the Differential Calculus, that this latter is not altogether as simple a thing
as a sonnet by Mr. Solomon Seesaw.
By way of admitting, then, no chance for misapprehension, I think it
advisable to proceed as if even the more obvious facts of Astronomy were
unknown to the reader. In combining the two modes of discussion to
which I have referred, I propose to avail myself of the advantages peculiar
to each—and very especially of the iteration in detail which will be
unavoidable as a consequence of the plan.
10
Commencing with a descent, I shall reserve for the return upwards those indispensable considerations of quantity to which allusion has already been made.
Let us begin, then, at once, with that merest of words, “Infinity.” This, like “God,” “spirit,” and some
other expressions of which the equivalents exist in all languages, is by no means the expression of
an idea—but of an effort at one. It stands for the possible attempt at an impossible conception. Man
needed a term by which to point out the direction of this effort—the cloud behind which lay, forever
11
invisible, the object of this attempt.
A word, in fine, was demanded, by means of which one human being
might put himself in relation at once with another human being and with
a certain tendency of the human intellect. Out of this demand arose the
word, “Infinity;” which is thus the representative but of the thought of a
thought.
As regards that infinity now considered—the infinity of space—we
often hear it said that “its idea is admitted by the mind—is acquiesced
in—is entertained—on account of the greater difficulty which attends
the conception of a limit.” But this is merely one of those phrases by
which even profound thinkers, time out of mind, have occasionally taken
pleasure in deceiving themselves. The quibble lies concealed in the word
“difficulty.” “The mind,” we are told, “entertains the idea of limitless,
through the greater difficulty which it finds in entertaining that of limited,
space.” Now, were the proposition but fairly put, its absurdity would
become transparent at once.
Clearly, there is no mere difficulty in the case.
The assertion intended, if presented according
to its intention and without sophistry, would run
thus:—“The mind admits the idea of limitless,
through the greater impossibility of entertaining
that of limited, space.”
It must be immediately seen that this is not a question of two statements
between whose respective credibilities—or of two arguments between
whose respective validities—the reason is called upon to decide:—it is
a matter of two conceptions, directly conflicting, and each avowedly
impossible, one of which the intellect is supposed to be capable of
entertaining, on account of the greater impossibility of entertaining the
other. The choice is not made between two difficulties;—it is merely
fancied to be made between two impossibilities. Now of the former,
there are degrees—but of the latter, none:—just as our impertinent letterwriter has already suggested. A task may be more or less difficult; but it is
either possible or not possible:—there are no gradations. It might be more
difficult to overthrow the Andes than an ant-hill; but it can be no more
impossible to annihilate the matter of the one than the matter of the other.
A man may jump ten feet with less difficulty than he can jump twenty, but
the impossibility of his leaping to the moon is not a whit less than that of
his leaping to the dog-star.
The readiest mode, however, of displaying the fallacy of the philosophical
argument on this question, is by simply adverting to a fact respecting it
which has been hitherto quite overlooked—the fact that the argument
alluded to both proves and disproves its own proposition. “The mind is
impelled,” say the theologians and others, “to admit a First Cause, by the
superior difficulty it experiences in conceiving cause beyond cause without
end.” The quibble, as before, lies in the word “difficulty”—but here what
is it employed to sustain? A First Cause. And what is a First Cause? An
ultimate termination of causes. And what is an ultimate termination of
causes? Finity—the Finite. Thus the one quibble, in two processes, by God
knows how many philosophers, is made to support now Finity and now
Infinity—could it not be brought to support something besides? As for the
quibblers—they, at least, are insupportable. But—to dismiss them:—what
they prove in the one case is the identical nothing which they demonstrate
in the other.
Of course, no one will suppose that I here contend for the absolute
impossibility of that which we attempt to convey in the word “Infinity.”
My purpose is but to show the folly of endeavoring to prove Infinity itself
or even our conception of it, by any such blundering ratiocination as that
which is ordinarily employed.
Nevertheless, as an individual, I may be permitted to say that I cannot
conceive Infinity, and am convinced that no human being can. A mind not
thoroughly self-conscious—not accustomed to the introspective analysis
of its own operations—will, it is true, often deceive itself by supposing
that it has entertained the conception of which we speak. In the effort to
entertain it, we proceed step beyond step—we fancy point still beyond
point; and so long as we continue the effort, it may be said, in fact, that we
are tending to the formation of the idea designed; while the strength of the
12
Pantograph
impression that we actually form or have formed it, is in the ratio of the
period during which we keep up the mental endeavor. But it is in the act
of discontinuing the endeavor—of fulfilling (as we think) the idea—of
putting the finishing stroke (as we suppose) to the conception—that we
overthrow at once the whole fabric of our fancy by resting upon some
one ultimate and therefore definite point. This fact, however, we fail
to perceive, on account of the absolute coincidence, in time, between
the settling down upon the ultimate point and the act of cessation
in thinking.—In attempting, on the other hand, to frame the idea of
a limited space, we merely converse the processes which involve the
impossibility.
We believe in a God. We may or may not believe in finite or in infinite
space; but our belief, in such cases, is more properly designated as
faith, and is a matter quite distinct from that belief proper—from that
intellectual belief—which presupposes the mental conception.
The fact is, that, upon the enunciation of any one of that class of
terms to which “Infinity” belongs—the class representing thoughts of
thought—he who has a right to say that he thinks at all, feels himself
called upon, not to entertain a conception, but simply to direct his
mental vision toward some given point, in the intellectual firmament,
where lies a nebula never to be resolved. To solve it, indeed, he makes
no effort; for with a rapid instinct he comprehends, not only the
impossibility, but, as regards all human purposes, the inessentiality, of
its solution. He perceives that the Deity has not designed it to be solved.
He sees, at once, that it lies out of the brain of man, and even how, if not
exactly why, it lies out of it. There are people, I am aware, who, busying
themselves in attempts at the unattainable, acquire very easily, by dint of
the jargon they emit, among those thinkers-that-they-think with whom
darkness and depth are synonymous, a kind of cuttle-fish reputation for
profundity; but the finest quality of Thought is its self-cognizance; and,
with some little equivocation, it may be said that no fog of the mind can
well be greater than that which, extending to the very boundaries of
the mental domain, shuts out even these boundaries themselves from
comprehension.
It will now be understood that, in using the phrase, “Infinity of Space,”
I make no call upon the reader to entertain the impossible conception of
an absolute infinity. I refer simply to the “utmost conceivable expanse”
of space—a shadowy and fluctuating domain, now shrinking, now
swelling, in accordance with the vacillating energies of the imagination.
Hitherto, the Universe of stars has always been considered as
coincident with the Universe proper, as I have defined it in the
commencement of this Discourse. It has been always either directly or
indirectly assumed—at least since the dawn of intelligible Astronomy—
that, were it possible for us to attain any given point in space, we should
still find, on all sides of us, an interminable succession of stars.
This was the untenable idea of Pascal when making perhaps the most successful attempt ever
made, at periphrasing the conception for which
we struggle in the word “Universe.” “It is a sphere,”
he says, “of which the centre is everywhere, the
circumference, nowhere.”
But although this intended definition is, in fact, no definition of the
Universe of stars, we may accept it, with some mental reservation, as a
definition (rigorous enough for all practical purposes) of the Universe
proper—that is to say, of the Universe of space. This latter, then, let us
regard as “a sphere of which the centre is everywhere, the circumference
nowhere.” In fact, while we find it impossible to fancy an end to space,
we have no difficulty in picturing to ourselves any one of an infinity of
beginnings.
As our starting-point, then, let us adopt the Godhead. Of this
Godhead, in itself, he alone is not imbecile—he alone is not impious
who propounds—nothing. “Nous ne connaissons rien,” says the Baron
de Bielfeld—“Nous ne connaissons rien de la nature ou de l’essence
de Dieu:—pour savoir ce qu’il est, il faut être Dieu même.”—“We
know absolutely nothing of the nature or essence of God:—in order to
comprehend what he is, we should have to be God ourselves.” 13
“We should have to be God ourselves!”—With
a phrase so startling as this yet ringing in my
ears, I nevertheless venture to demand if this
our present ignorance of the Deity is an ignorance to which the soul is everlastingly condemned.
By Him, however—now, at least, the Incomprehensible—by Him—
assuming him as Spirit—that is to say, as not Matter—a distinction
which, for all intelligible purposes, will stand well instead of a
definition—by Him, then, existing as Spirit, let us content ourselves,
to-night, with supposing to have been created, or made out of
Nothing, by dint of his Volition—at some point of Space which
we will take as a centre—at some period into which we do not
pretend to inquire, but at all events immensely remote—by Him,
then again, let us suppose to have been created——what? This is a
vitally momentous epoch in our considerations.What is it that we
are justified—that alone we are justified in supposing to have been,
primarily and solely, created?
We have attained a point where only Intuition can aid us:—but now
let me recur to the idea which I have already suggested as that alone
which we can properly entertain of intuition. It is but the conviction
arising from those inductions or deductions of which the processes
are so shadowy as to escape our consciousness, elude our reason, or
defy our capacity of expression.
A Vietnamese woman and an archangel
14
With this understanding, I now assert—that an intuition altogether irresistible, although inexpressible, forces me to the conclusion that what God
originally created—that that Matter which, by dint
of his Volition, he first made from his Spirit, or
from Nihility, could have been nothing but Matter in its utmost conceivable state of——what?—of
Simplicity?
An antipode
This will be found the sole absolute assumption of my Discourse. I use
the word “assumption” in its ordinary sense; yet I maintain that even this
my primary proposition, is very, very far indeed, from being really a mere
assumption. Nothing was ever more certainly—no human conclusion
was ever, in fact, more regularly—more rigorously deduced:—but, alas!
the processes lie out of the human analysis—at all events are beyond the
utterance of the human tongue.
Let us now endeavor to conceive what Matter must be, when, or if,
in its absolute extreme of Simplicity. Here the Reason flies at once to
Imparticularity—to a particle—to one particle—a particle of one kind—
of one character—of one nature—of one size—of one form—a particle,
therefore, “without form and void”—a particle positively a particle at
all points—a particle absolutely unique, individual, undivided, and not
indivisible only because He who created it, by dint of his Will, can by an
infinitely less energetic exercise of the same Will, as a matter of course,
divide it.
Oneness, then, is all that I predicate of the originally created Matter; but
I propose to show that this Oneness is a principle abundantly sufficient
to account for the constitution, the existing phænomena and the plainly
inevitable annihilation of at least the material Universe.
The willing into being the primordial particle, has completed the act,
or more properly the conception, of Creation. We now proceed to the
ultimate purpose for which we are to suppose the Particle created—that is
to say, the ultimate purpose so far as our considerations yet enable us to
see it—the constitution of the Universe from it, the Particle.
This constitution has been effected by forcing the originally and
therefore normally One into the abnormal condition of Many. An
action of this character implies rëaction. A diffusion from Unity, under
the conditions, involves a tendency to return into Unity—a tendency
ineradicable until satisfied. But on these points I will speak more fully
hereafter.
The assumption of absolute Unity in the primordial Particle includes
that of infinite divisibility. Let us conceive the Particle, then, to be only
not totally exhausted by diffusion into Space. From the one Particle, as
a centre, let us suppose to be irradiated spherically—in all directions—
to immeasurable but still to definite distances in the previously
vacant space—a certain inexpressibly great yet limited number of
unimaginably yet not infinitely minute atoms.
Now, of these atoms, thus diffused, or upon diffusion, what conditions
are we permitted—not to assume, but to infer, from consideration as
well of their source as of the character of the design apparent in their
diffusion? Difference of kind is easily conceived to be merely a result
of differences in size and form, taken more or less conjointly:—in fact,
since the Unity of the Particle Proper implies absolute homogeneity, we
cannot imagine the atoms, at their diffusion, differing in kind, without
imagining, at the same time, a special exercise of the Divine Will, at the
emission of each atom, for the purpose of effecting, in each, a change of
its essential nature:—so fantastic an idea is the less to be indulged, as the
object proposed is seen to be thoroughly attainable without such minute
and elaborate interposition. We perceive, therefore, upon the whole,
that it would be supererogatory, and consequently unphilosophical, to
predicate of the atoms, in view of their purposes, any thing more than
difference of form at their dispersion, with particular inequidistance
after it—all other differences arising at once out of these, in the very
first processes of mass-constitution:—We thus establish the Universe
on a purely geometrical basis. Of course, it is by no means necessary
to assume absolute difference, even of form, among all the atoms
irradiated—any more than absolute particular inequidistance of each
from each. We are required to conceive merely that no neighboring
atoms are of similar form—no atoms which can ever approximate, until
15
their inevitable rëunition at the end.
Although the immediate and perpetual tendency of the disunited atoms to
return into their normal Unity, is implied, as I have said, in their abnormal
diffusion; still it is clear that this tendency will be without consequence—a
tendency and no more—until the diffusive energy, in ceasing to be exerted,
shall leave it, the tendency, free to seek its satisfaction. The Divine Act,
however, being considered as determinate, and discontinued on fulfilment
of the diffusion, we understand, at once, a rëaction—in other words,
asatisfiable tendency of the disunited atoms to return into One.
For the effectual and thorough completion of the general design, we
thus see the necessity for a repulsion of limited capacity—a separative
something which, on withdrawal of the diffusive Volition, shall at the same
time allow the approach, and forbid the junction, of the atoms; suffering
them infinitely to approximate, while denying them positive contact; in
a word, having the power—up to a certain epoch—of preventing their
coalition, but no ability to interfere with their coalescence in any respect
or degree. The repulsion, already considered as so peculiarly limited in
other regards, must be understood, let me repeat, as having power to
prevent absolute coalition, only up to a certain epoch. Unless we are to
conceive that the appetite for Unity among the atoms is doomed to be
satisfied never;—unless we are to conceive that what had a beginning is to
have no end—a conception which cannot really be entertained, however
much we may talk or dream of entertaining it—we are forced to conclude
that the repulsive influence imagined, will, finally—under pressure of
the Unitendency collectively applied, but never and in no degree until,
on fulfilment of the Divine purposes, such collective application shall be
naturally made—yield to a force which, at that ultimate epoch, shall be
the superior force precisely to the extent required, and thus permit the
universal subsidence into the inevitable, because original and therefore
normal, One.—The conditions here to be reconciled are difficult indeed:—
we cannot even comprehend the possibility of their conciliation;—
nevertheless, the apparent impossibility is brilliantly suggestive.
That the repulsive something actually exists, we see. Man neither employs,
nor knows, a force sufficient to bring two atoms into contact. This is but the
well-established proposition of the impenetrability of matter.
A muller grinding pigments that paint a vase of flowers fallen
All Experiment proves—all Philosophy admits it.
The design of the repulsion—the necessity for its
existence—I have endeavored to show; but from
all attempt at investigating its nature have religiously abstained; this on account of an intuitive
conviction that the principle at issue is strictly
spiritual—lies in a recess impervious to our present understanding—lies involved in a consideration of what now—in our human state—is not
to be considered—in a consideration of Spirit in
itself. I feel, in a word, that here the God has interposed, and here only, because here and here
only the knot demanded the interposition of the
God.
In fact, while the tendency of the diffused atoms to return into Unity,
will be recognized, at once, as the principle of the Newtonian Gravity,
what I have spoken of as a repulsive influence prescribing limits to the
(immediate) satisfaction of the tendency, will be understood as that
which we have been in the practice of designating now as heat, now
as magnetism, now as electricity; displaying our ignorance of its awful
character in the vacillation of the phraseology with which we endeavor
to circumscribe it.
Calling it, merely for the moment, electricity, we know that all
experimental analysis of electricity has given, as an ultimate result, the
principle, or seeming principle, heterogeneity. Only where things differ
is electricity apparent; and it is presumable that they never differ where
it is not developed at least, if not apparent. Now, this result is in the
fullest keeping with that which I have reached unempirically.
16
The design of the repulsive influence I have maintained to be that of preventing immediate Unity
among the diffused atoms; and these atoms are represented as different each from each. Difference is
their character—their essentiality—just as no-difference was the essentiality of their source.
When we say, then, that an attempt to bring any two of these atoms together would induce an effort,
on the part of the repulsive influence, to prevent the contact, we may as well use the strictly convertible sentence that an attempt to bring together any two differences will result in a development of
electricity.
17
All existing bodies, of course, are composed of these atoms in proximate
contact, and are therefore to be considered as mere assemblages of more
or fewer differences; and the resistance made by the repulsive spirit, on
bringing together any two such assemblages, would be in the ratio of
the two sums of the differences in each:—an expression which, when
reduced, is equivalent to this:—The amount of electricity developed on the
approximation of two bodies, is proportional to the difference between the
respective sums of the atoms of which the bodies are composed. That no
two bodies are absolutely alike, is a simple corollary from all that has been
here said. Electricity, therefore, existing always, is developed whenever
any bodies, but manifested only when bodies of appreciable difference, are
brought into approximation.
To electricity—so, for the present, continuing to call it—we may not
be wrong in referring the various physical appearances of light, heat
and magnetism; but far less shall we be liable to err in attributing to this
strictly spiritual principle the more important phænomena of vitality,
consciousness and Thought. On this topic, however, I need pause here
merely to suggest that these phænomena, whether observed generally or in
detail, seem to proceed at least in the ratio of the heterogeneous.
Discarding now the two equivocal terms, “gravitation” and “electricity,”
let us adopt the more definite expressions, “attraction” and “repulsion.”
The former is the body; the latter the soul: the one is the material; the
other the spiritual, principle of the Universe. No other principles exist. All
phænomena are referable to one, or to the other, or to both combined. So
rigorously is this the case—so thoroughly demonstrable is it that attraction
and repulsion are the sole properties through which we perceive the
Universe—in other words, by which Matter is manifested to Mind—that,
for all merely argumentative purposes, we are fully justified in assuming
that matter exists only as attraction and repulsion—that attraction and
repulsion are matter:—there being no conceivable case in which we may
not employ the term “matter” and the terms “attraction” and “repulsion,”
taken together, as equivalent, and therefore convertible, expressions in
Logic.
In fact, I have attained a point at which it will be advisable to strengthen
my position by reversing my processes. So far, we have gone on à priori,
from an abstract consideration of Simplicity, as that quality most likely to
have characterized the original action of God. Let us now see whether
the established facts of the Newtonian Gravitation may not afford us, à
posteriori, some legitimate inductions.
What does the Newtonian law declare?—That all bodies attract each
other with forces proportional to their quantities of matter and inversely
proportional to the squares of their distances. Purposely, I have here
given, in the first place, the vulgar version of the law; and I confess
that in this, as in most other vulgar versions of great truths, we find
little of a suggestive character. Let us now adopt a more philosophical
phraseology:—Every atom, of every body, attracts every other atom,
both of its own and of every other body, with a force which varies
inversely as the squares of the distances between the attracting and
attracted atom.—Here, indeed, a flood of suggestion bursts upon the
mind.
But let us see distinctly what it was that Newton proved—according to
the grossly irrational definitions of proof prescribed by the metaphysical
schools. He was forced to content himself with showing how thoroughly
the motions of an imaginary Universe, composed of attracting and
attracted atoms obedient to the law he announced, coincide with
those of the actually existing Universe so far as it comes under our
observation. This was the amount of his demonstration—that is to say,
this was the amount of it, according to the conventional cant of the
“philosophies.” His successes added proof multiplied by proof—such
proof as a sound intellect admits—but the demonstration of the law
itself, persist the metaphysicians, had not been strengthened in any
degree. “Ocular, physical proof,” however, of attraction, here upon
Earth, in accordance with the Newtonian theory, was, at length, much to
the satisfaction of some intellectual grovellers, afforded. This proof arose
collaterally and incidentally (as nearly all important truths have arisen)
out of an attempt to ascertain the mean density of the Earth. In the
famous Maskelyne, Cavendish and Bailly experiments for this purpose,
the attraction of the mass of a mountain was seen, felt, measured, and
found to be mathematically consistent with the immortal theory of the
British astronomer.
On the Earth we see and feel, only that gravity impels all bodies
towards the centre of the Earth. No man in the common walks of
life could be made to see or to feel anything else—could be made
to perceive that anything, anywhere, has a perpetual, gravitating
tendency in any other direction than to the centre of the Earth; yet (with
an exception hereafter to be specified) it is a fact that every earthly thing
(not to speak now of every heavenly thing) has a tendency not only to the
Earth’s centre but in every conceivable direction besides.
Now, although the philosophic cannot be said to err with the vulgar in
this matter, they nevertheless permit themselves to be influenced, without
knowing it, by the sentiment of the vulgar idea. “Although the Pagan
fables are not believed,” says Bryant, in his very erudite “Mythology,” “yet
we forget ourselves continually and make inferences from them as from
existing realities.” I mean to assert that the merely sensitive perception
of gravity as we experience it on Earth, beguiles mankind into the fancy
of concentralization or especiality respecting it—has been continually
biasing towards this fancy even the mightiest intellects—perpetually,
although imperceptibly, leading them away from the real characteristics
of the principle; thus preventing them, up to this date, from ever getting
a glimpse of that vital truth which lies in a diametrically opposite
direction—behind the principle’s essential characteristics—those, not of
concentralization or especiality—but of universality and diffusion. This
“vital truth” is Unity as the source of the phænomenon.
Let me now repeat the definition of gravity:—Every atom, of every body,
attracts every other atom, both of its own and of every other body, with a
force which varies inversely as the squares of the distances of the attracting
and attracted atom.
Had we discovered, simply, that each atom tended to some one favorite
point—to some especially attractive atom—we should still have fallen upon
a discovery which, in itself, would have sufficed to overwhelm the mind:—
but what is it that we are actually called upon to comprehend? That each
atom attracts—sympathizes with the most delicate movements of every
other atom, and with each and with all at the same time, and forever, and
according to a determinate law of which the complexity, even considered
by itself solely, is utterly beyond the grasp of the imagination of man. If
I propose to ascertain the influence of one mote in a sunbeam upon its
neighboring mote, I cannot accomplish my purpose without first counting
and weighing all the atoms in the Universe and defining the precise
positions of all at one particular moment. If I venture to displace, by even
the billionth part of an inch, the microscopical speck of dust which lies
now upon the point of my finger, what is the character of that act upon
which I have adventured? I have done a deed which shakes the Moon in
her path, which causes the Sun to be no longer the Sun, and which alters
forever the destiny of the multitudinous myriads of stars that roll and
glow in the majestic presence of their Creator.
These ideas—conceptions such as these—unthoughtlike thoughts—
soul-reveries rather than conclusions or even considerations of the
intellect:—ideas, I repeat, such as these, are such as we can alone hope
profitably to entertain in any effort at grasping the great principle,
Attraction.
But now,—with such ideas—with such a vision of the marvellous
complexity of Attraction fairly in his mind—let any person competent
of thought on such topics as these, set himself to the task of imagining
a principle for the phænomena observed—a condition from which they
sprang.
Does not so evident a brotherhood among the atoms point to a
common parentage? Does not a sympathy so omniprevalent, so
ineradicable, and so thoroughly irrespective, suggest a common
paternity as its source? Does not one extreme impel the reason to
the other? Does not the infinitude of division refer to the utterness
of individuality? Does not the entireness of the complex hint at the
perfection of the simple? It is not that the atoms, as we see them,
are divided or that they are complex in their relations—but that
they are inconceivably divided and unutterably complex:—it is the
extremeness of the conditions to which I now allude, rather than to
the conditions themselves. In a word, is it not because the atoms were,
at some remote epoch of time, even more than together—is it not
because originally, and therefore normally, they were One—that now,
in all circumstances—at all points—in all directions—by all modes of
approach—in all relations and through all conditions—they struggle
back to this absolutely, this irrelatively, this unconditionally one?
Some person may here demand:—“Why—since it is to the One that
the atoms struggle back—do we not find and define Attraction ‘a merely
general tendency to a centre?’—why, in especial, do not your atoms—
the atoms which you describe as having been irradiated from a centre—
proceed at once, rectilinearly, back to the central point of their origin?”
18
Simplicity
I reply that they do; as will be distinctly shown; but that the cause of
their so doing is quite irrespective of the centre as such. They all tend
rectilinearly towards a centre, because of the sphereicity with which they
have been irradiated into space. Each atom, forming one of a generally
uniform globe of atoms, finds more atoms in the direction of the centre,
of course, than in any other, and in that direction, therefore, is impelled—
but is not thus impelled because the centre is the point of its origin. It is
not to any pointthat the atoms are allied. It is not any locality, either in
the concrete or in the abstract, to which I suppose them bound. Nothing
likelocation was conceived as their origin. Their source lies in the principle,
Unity. This is their lost parent. This they seek always—immediately—in
all directions—wherever it is even partially to be found; thus appeasing,
in some measure, the ineradicable tendency, while on the way to its
absolute satisfaction in the end. It follows from all this, that any principle
which shall be adequate to account for the law, or modus operandi, of the
attractive force in general, will account for this law in particular:—that is
to say, any principle which will show why the atoms should tend to their
general centre of irradiation with forces inversely proportional to the
squares of the distances, will be admitted as satisfactorily accounting, at
the same time, for the tendency, according to the same law, of these atoms
each to each:—for the tendency to the centre is merely the tendency each
to each, and not any tendency to a centre as such. In the future processes
of Science, were a more ample phraseology adopted:—for instance:—“Each
atom tends to every other atom &c. with a force &c.: the general result
being a tendency of all, with a similar force, to a general centre.”
The reversal of our processes has thus brought us to an identical result;
but, while in the one process intuition was the starting-point, in the other
it was the goal. In commencing the former journey I could only say that,
with an irresistible intuition, I felt Simplicity to have been the characteristic
of the original action of God:—in ending the latter I can only declare that,
with an irresistible intuition, I perceive Unity to have been the source of
the observed phænomena of the Newtonian gravitation. Thus, according
to the schools, I prove nothing. So be it:—I design but to suggest—and
to convince through the suggestion. I am proudly aware that there exist
many of the most profound and cautiously discriminative human intellects
which cannot help being abundantly content with my—suggestions. To
these intellects—as to my own—there is no mathematical demonstration
which could bring the least additional true proof of the great Truth
which I have advanced—the truth of Original Unity as the source—as
the principle of the Universal Phænomena. For my part, I am not so
sure that I speak and see—I am not so sure that my heart beats and that
my soul lives:—of the rising of to-morrow’s sun—a probability that as
yet lies in the Future—I do not pretend to be one thousandth part as
sure—as I am of the irretrievably by-gone Fact that All Things and All
Thoughts of Things, with all their ineffable Multiplicity of Relation,
sprang at once into being from the primordial and irrelative One.
Referring to the Newtonian Gravity, Dr. Nichol, the eloquent author
of “The Architecture of the Heavens,” says:—“In truth we have no
reason to suppose this great Law, as now revealed, to be the ultimate or
simplest, and therefore the universal and all-comprehensive, form of a
great Ordinance. The mode in which its intensity diminishes with the
element of distance, has not the aspect of an ultimate principle; which
always assumes the simplicity and self-evidence of those axioms which
constitute the basis of Geometry.”
Dr. Nichol speaks as having geometrical simplicity, may and do have
this geometrical turn, as being part and parcel of a vast geometrical
system,
and thus a system of simplicity itself—in which,
nevertheless, the truly ultimate principle is, as
we know, the consummation of the complex—
that is to say, of the unintelligible—for is it not
the Spiritual Capacity of God?
I quoted Dr. Nichol’s remark, however, not so much to question
its philosophy, as by way of calling attention to the fact that, while
all men have admitted some principle as existing behind the Law of
Gravity, no attempt has been yet made to point out what this principle
in particular is:—if we except, perhaps, occasional fantastic efforts at
19
referring it to Magnetism, or Mesmerism, or Swedenborgianism,
or Transcendentalism, or some other equally delicious ism of
the same species, and invariably patronized by one and the
same species of people. The great mind of Newton, while boldly
grasping the Law itself, shrank from the principle of the Law. The
more fluent and comprehensive at least, if not the more patient
and profound, sagacity of Laplace, had not the courage to attack
it. But hesitation on the part of these two astronomers it is,
perhaps, not so very difficult to understand. They, as well as all
the first class of mathematicians, were mathematicians solely:—
their intellect, at least, had a firmly-pronounced mathematicophysical tone. What lay not distinctly within the domain of
Physics, or of Mathematics, seemed to them either Non-Entity
or Shadow. Nevertheless, we may well wonder that Leibnitz, who
was a marked exception to the general rule in these respects,
and whose mental temperament was a singular admixture of
the mathematical with the physico-metaphysical, did not at
once investigate and establish the point at issue. Either Newton
or Laplace, seeking a principle and discovering none physical,
would have rested contentedly in the conclusion that there was
absolutely none; but it is almost impossible to fancy, of Leibnitz,
that, having exhausted in his search the physical dominions,
he would not have stepped at once, boldly and hopefully, amid
his old familiar haunts in the kingdom of Metaphysics. Here,
indeed, it is clear that he must have adventured in search of the
treasure:—that he did not find it after all, was, perhaps, because
his fairy guide, Imagination, was not sufficiently well-grown, or
well-educated, to direct him aright.
I observed, just now, that, in fact, there had been certain vague
attempts at referring Gravity to some very uncertain isms.
These attempts, however, although considered bold and justly
so considered, looked no farther than to the generality—the
merest generality—of the Newtonian Law. Its modus operandi
has never, to my knowledge, been approached in the way of an
effort at explanation. It is, therefore, with no unwarranted fear
of being taken for a madman at the outset, and before I can bring my
propositions fairly to the eye of those who alone are competent to
decide upon them, that I here declare the modus operandi of the Law of
Gravity to be an exceedingly simple and perfectly explicable thing—that
is to say, when we make our advances towards it in just gradations and
in the true direction—when we regard it from the proper point of view.
Whether we reach the idea of absolute Unity as the source of All
Things, from a consideration of Simplicity as the most probable
characteristic of the original action of God;—whether we arrive at it
from an inspection of the universality of relation in the gravitating
phænomena;—or whether we attain it as a result of the mutual
corroboration afforded by both processes;—still, the idea itself, if
entertained at all, is entertained in inseparable connection with another
idea—that of the condition of the Universe of stars as we now perceive
it—that is to say, a condition of immeasurable diffusion through space.
Now a connection between these two ideas—
unity and diffusion—cannot be established unless through the entertainment of a third idea—
that of irradiation.
Absolute Unity being taken as a centre, then the existing Universe of
stars is the result of irradiation from that centre.
Now, the laws of irradiation are known. They are part and parcel of the
sphere. They belong to the class of indisputable geometrical properties.
We say of them, “they are true—they are evident.” To demand why they
are true, would be to demand why the axioms are true upon which their
demonstration is based. Nothing is demonstrable, strictly speaking;
but if anything be, then the properties—the laws in question are
demonstrated.
But these laws—what do they declare? Irradiation—how—by what
steps does it proceed outwardly from a centre?
From a luminous centre, Light issues by irradiation; and the
quantities of light received upon any given plane, supposed to be
shifting its position so as to be now nearer the centre and now farther
from it, will be diminished in the same proportion as the squares of
the distances of the plane from the luminous body, are increased;
and will be increased in the same proportion as these squares are
diminished.
The expression of the law may be thus generalized:—the number
of light-particles (or, if the phrase be preferred, the number
of light-impressions) received upon the shifting plane, will be
inversely proportional with the squares of the distances of the
plane. Generalizing yet again, we may say that the diffusion—the
scattering—the irradiation, in a word—is directly proportional with
the squares of the distances.
For example: at the distance B, from the luminous centre A, a certain
number of particles are so diffused as to occupy the surface B. Then at
double the distance—that is to say at C—they will be so much farther
diffused as to occupy four such surfaces:—at treble the distance,
or at D, they will be so much farther separated as to occupy nine
such surfaces:—while, at quadruple the distance, or at E, they will
have become so scattered as to spread themselves over sixteen such
surfaces—and so on forever.
In saying, generally, that the irradiation proceeds in direct
proportion with the squares of the distances, we use the term
irradiation to express the degree of the diffusion as we proceed
outwardly from the centre. Conversing the idea, and employing the
word “concentralization” to express the degree of the drawing together
as we come back toward the centre from an outward position, we may
say that concentralization proceeds inversely as the squares of the
distances.
irridation
20
In other words, we have reached the conclusion that, on the hypothesis that matter was originally
irradiated from a centre and is now returning to it, the concentralization, in the return, proceeds
exactly as we know the force of gravitation to proceed.
Now here, if we could be permitted to assume that concentralization exactly represented the force of the tendency to the centre—that the one was
exactly proportional to the other, and that the two proceeded together—we should have shown all that is required. The sole difficulty existing, then,
is to establish a direct proportion between “concentralization” and the force of concentralization; and this is done, of course, if we establish such
proportion between “irradiation” and the force of irradiation.
Camera obcura tracing and renewing
21
I started, it will be remembered, with the idea of a generally uniform
but particularly ununiform distribution of the atoms;—an idea, I repeat,
which an inspection of the stars, as they exist, confirms.
A very slight inspection of the Heavens assures us
that the stars have a certain general uniformity,
equability, or equidistance, of distribution through
that region of space in which, collectively, and in
a roughly globular form, they are situated:—this
species of very general, rather than absolute, equability, being in full keeping with my deduction of
inequidistance, within certain limits, among the
originally diffused atoms, as a corollary from the
evident design of infinite complexity of relation
out of irrelation.
But even in the merely general equability of distribution, as regards the
atoms, there appears a difficulty which, no doubt, has already suggested
itself to those among my readers who have borne in mind that I suppose
this equability of distribution effected through irradiation from a
centre. The very first glance at the idea, irradiation, forces us to the
entertainment of the hitherto unseparated and seemingly inseparable
idea of agglomeration about a centre, with dispersion as we recede from
it—the idea, in a word, of inequability of distribution in respect to the
matter irradiated.
Now, I have elsewhere (in The Murders of the Rue Morgue) observed
that it is by just such difficulties as the one now in question—such
roughnesses—such peculiarities—such protuberances above the plane
of the ordinary—that Reason feels her way, if at all, in her search for the
True. By the difficulty—the “peculiarity”—now presented, I leap at once
to the secret—a secret which I might never have attained but for the
peculiarity and the inferences which, in its mere character of peculiarity,
it affords me.
The process of thought, at this point, may be thus roughly sketched:—I
say to myself—“Unity, as I have explained it, is a truth—I feel it.
Diffusion is a truth—I see it. Irradiation, by which alone these two
truths are reconciled, is a consequent truth—I perceive it. Equability of
diffusion, first deduced à priori and then corroborated by the inspection
of phænomena, is also a truth—I fully admit it.
a flow chart
22
So far all is clear around me:—there are no clouds
behind which the secret—the great secret of the
gravitating modus operandi—can possibly lie hidden;—but this secret lies hereabouts, most assuredly; and were there but a cloud in view, I should
be driven to suspicion of that cloud.”
And now, just as I say this, there actually comes a cloud into view. This
cloud is the seeming impossibility of reconciling my truth, irradiation,
with my truth, equability of diffusion. I say now:—“Behind this
seeming impossibility is to be found what I desire.” I do not say “real
impossibility;” for invincible faith in my truths assures me that it is a
mere difficulty after all—but I go on to say, with unflinching confidence,
that, when this difficulty shall be solved, we shall find,wrapped up in the
process of solution, the key to the secret at which we aim. Moreover—I
feel that we shall discover but one possible solution of the difficulty; this
for the reason that, were there two, one would be supererogatory—would
be fruitless—would be empty—would contain no key—since no duplicate
key can be needed to any secret of Nature.
And now, let us see:—Our usual notions of irradiation—in fact all our
distinct notions of it—are caught merely from the process as we see
it exemplified in Light. Here there is a continuous outpouring of raystreams, and with a force which we have at least no right to suppose
varies at all. Now, in any such irradiation as this—continuous and of
unvarying force—the regions nearer the centre must inevitably be always
more crowded with the irradiated matter than the regions more remote.
But I have assumed no such irradiation as this. I assumed no continuous
irradiation; and for the simple reason that such an assumption would
have involved, first, the necessity of entertaining a conception which I
have shown no man can entertain, and which (as I will more fully explain
hereafter) all observation of the firmament refutes—the conception
of the absolute infinity of the Universe of stars—and would have
involved, secondly, the impossibility of understanding a rëaction—that
is, gravitation—as existing now—since, while an act is continued, no
rëaction, of course, can take place. My assumption, then, or rather my
inevitable deduction from just premises—was that of a determinate
irradiation—one finally discontinued.
Let me now describe the sole possible mode in which it is conceivable
that matter could have been diffused through space, so as to fulfil the
conditions at once of irradiation and of generally equable distribution.
For convenience of illustration, let us imagine, in the first place, a hollow
sphere of glass, or of anything else, occupying the space throughout
which the universal matter is to be thus equally diffused, by means of
irradiation, from the absolute, irrelative, unconditional particle, placed in
the centre of the sphere.
Now, a certain exertion of the diffusive power (presumed to be the
Divine Volition)—in other words, a certain force—whose measure is
the quantity of matter—that is to say, the number of atoms—emitted;
emits, by irradiation, this certain number of atoms; forcing them in all
directions outwardly from the centre—their proximity to each other
diminishing as they proceed—until, finally, they are distributed, loosely,
over the interior surface of the sphere.
When these atoms have attained this position, or while proceeding to
attain it, a second and inferior exercise of the same force—or a second
and inferior force of the same character—emits, in the same manner—
that is to say, by irradiation as before—a second stratum of atoms which
proceeds to deposit itself upon the first; the number of atoms, in this case
as in the former, being of course the measure of the force which emitted
them; in other words the force being precisely adapted to the purpose it
effects—the force and the number of atoms sent out by the force, being
directly proportional.
When this second stratum has reached its destined position—or while
approaching it—a third still inferior exertion of the force, or a third
inferior force of a similar character—the number of atoms emitted being
in all cases the measure of the force—proceeds to deposit a third stratum
23
upon the second:—and so on, until these concentric strata, growing
gradually less and less, come down at length to the central point; and the
diffusive matter, simultaneously with the diffusive force, is exhausted.
We have now the sphere filled, through means of irradiation, with atoms
equably diffused. The two necessary conditions—those of irradiation
and of equable diffusion—are satisfied; and by the sole process in which
the possibility of their simultaneous satisfaction is conceivable. For this
reason, I confidently expect to find, lurking in the present condition of
the atoms as distributed throughout the sphere, the secret of which I
am in search—the all-important principle of the modus operandi of the
Newtonian law. Let us examine, then, the actual condition of the atoms.
They lie in a series of concentric strata. They are equably diffused
throughout the sphere. They have been irradiated into these states.
The atoms being equably distributed, the greater the superficial extent
of any of these concentric strata, or spheres, the more atoms will lie upon
it. In other words, the number of atoms lying upon the surface of any one
of the concentric spheres, is directly proportional with the extent of that
surface.
A Florentine gentleman
The force of the irradiation has been directly proportional with the squares of the distances.Now,
Rëaction, as far as we know anything of it, is Action conversed. The general principle of Gravity
being, in the first place, understood as the rëaction of an act—as the expression of a desire on
the part of Matter, while existing in a state of diffusion, to return into the Unity whence it was diffused; and, in the second place, the mind being
called upon to determine the character of the desire—the manner in which it would, naturally, be
manifested; in other words, being called upon to
conceive a probable law, or modus operandi, for the
return; could not well help arriving at the conclusion
that this law of return would be precisely the converse of the law of departure. That such would be the
case, any one, at least, would be abundantly justified
in taking for granted, until such time as some person should suggest something like a plausible reason
why it should not be the case—until such period as
a law of return shall be imagined which the intellect
can consider as preferable.
Matter, then, irradiated into space with a force varying as the squares of
the distances, might, à priori, be supposed to return towards its centre of
irradiation with a force varying inversely as the squares of the distances: and
I have already shown that any principle which will explain why the atoms
should tend, according to any law, to the general centre, must be admitted as
satisfactorily explaining, at the same time, why, according to the same law,
they should tend each to each. For, in fact, the tendency to the general centre
is not to a centre as such, but because of its being a point in tending towards
which each atom tends most directly to its real and essential centre, Unity—
the absolute and final Union of all.
The consideration here involved presents to my own mind no
embarrassment whatever—but this fact does not blind me to the possibility of
its being obscure to those who may have been less in the habit of dealing with
abstractions:—and, upon the whole, it may be as well to look at the matter
from one or two other points of view.
The absolute, irrelative particle primarily created by the Volition of God,
must have been in a condition of positive normality, or rightfulness—for
wrongfulness implies relation. Any deviation from normality involves a
tendency to return into it. A difference from the normal—from the right—
from the just—can be understood as effected only by the overcoming
24
a difficulty; and if the force which overcomes the difficulty be not
infinitely continued, the ineradicable tendency to return will at length
be permitted to act for its own satisfaction. Upon withdrawal of the
force, the tendency acts. This is the principle of rëaction as the inevitable
consequence of finite action. Employing a phraseology of which the
seeming affectation will be pardoned for its expressiveness, we may say
that Rëaction is the return from the condition of as it is and ought not to
be into the condition of as it was, originally, and therefore ought to be:—
and let me add here that the absolute force of Rëaction would no doubt
be always found in direct proportion with the reality—the truth—the
absoluteness—of the originality—if ever it were possible to measure this
latter:—and, consequently, the greatest of all conceivable reactions must
be that produced by the tendency which we now discuss—the tendency
to return into the absolutely original—into the supremely primitive.
Gravity, then, must be the strongest of forces—an idea reached à priori
and abundantly confirmed by induction. What use I make of the idea,
will be seen in the sequel.
The atoms, now, having been diffused from their normal condition
of Unity, seek to return to——what? The direction of the centre each
atom perceives more atoms than in any other direction. Each atom is
impelled towards the centre because along the straight line joining it
and the centre and passing on to the circumference beyond, there lie a
greater number of atoms than along any other straight line—a greater
number of objects that seek it, the individual atom—a greater number
of tendencies to Unity—a greater number of satisfactions for its own
tendency to Unity—in a word, because in the direction of the centre lies
the utmost possibility of satisfaction, generally, for its own individual
appetite. Thus the tendency of the atoms to the general centre is, to all
practical intents and for all logical purposes, the tendency each to each;
and the tendency each to each is the tendency to the centre; and the one
tendency may be assumed as the other; whatever will apply to the one
must be thoroughly applicable to the other; and, in conclusion, whatever
principle will satisfactorily explain the one, cannot be questioned as an
explanation of the other.
With the understanding of a sphere of atoms, however, we perceive, at once, a satisfiable tendency
to union. The general result of the tendency each
to each, being a tendency of all to the centre, the
general process of condensation, or approximation, commences immediately, by a common and
simultaneous movement, on withdrawal of the
Divine Volition; the individual approximations,
or coalescences—not cöalitions—of atom with
atom, being subject to almost infinite variations
of time, degree, and condition, on account of the
excessive multiplicity of relation, arising from the
differences of form assumed as characterizing the
atoms at the moment of their quitting the Particle
Proper; as well as from the subsequent particular
inequidistance, each from each.
What I wish to impress upon the reader is the certainty of there arising,
at once, (on withdrawal of the diffusive force, or Divine Volition,)
out of the condition of the atoms as described, at innumerable points
throughout the Universal sphere, innumerable agglomerations,
characterized by innumerable specific differences of form, size, essential
nature, and distance each from each.
A printed text, folded like origami
25
The development of Repulsion (Electricity) must have commenced, of course, with the very earliest
particular efforts at Unity, and must have proceeded constantly in the ratio of Coalescence—that is
to say, in that of Condensation, or, again, of Heterogeneity.
Thus the two Principles Proper, Attraction and Repulsion—the Material and the Spiritual—accompany each other, in the strictest fellowship, forever. Thus The Body and The Soul walk hand in hand.
Soul and a woman hand in hand
26
The Universe
If now, in fancy, we select any one of the agglomerations considered as
in their primary stages throughout the Universal sphere, and suppose
this incipient agglomeration to be taking place at that point where the
centre of our Sun exists—or rather where it did exist originally; for the
Sun is perpetually shifting his position—we shall find ourselves met, and
borne onward for a time at least, by the most magnificent of theories—
by the Nebular Cosmogony of Laplace:—although “Cosmogony” is far
too comprehensive a term for what he really discusses—which is the
constitution of our solar system alone—of one among the myriad of
similar systems which make up the Universe Proper—that Universal
sphere—that all-inclusive and absolute Kosmos which forms the subject
of my present Discourse.
Confining himself to an obviously limited region—that of our
solar system with its comparatively immediate vicinity—and merely
assuming—that is to say, assuming without any basis whatever, either
deductive or inductive—much of what I have been just endeavoring to
place upon a more stable basis than assumption; assuming, for example,
matter as diffused (without pretending to account for the diffusion)
throughout, and somewhat beyond, the space occupied by our system—
diffused in a state of heterogeneous nebulosity and obedient to that
omniprevalent law of Gravity at whose principle he ventured to make
no guess;—assuming all this (which is quite true, although he had no
logical right to its assumption) Laplace has shown, dynamically and
mathematically, that the results in such case necessarily ensuing, are
those and those alone which we find manifested in the actually existing
condition of the system itself.
To explain:—Let us conceive that particular agglomeration of which we
have just spoken—the one at the point designated by our Sun’s centre—to
have so far proceeded that a vast quantity of nebulous matter has here
assumed a roughly globular form; its centre being, of course, coincident
with what is now, or rather was originally, the centre of our Sun; and its
periphery extending out beyond the orbit of Neptune, the most remote
of our planets:—in other words, let us suppose the diameter of this rough
sphere to be some 6000 millions of miles. For ages, this mass of matter
has been undergoing condensation, until at length it has become reduced
into the bulk we imagine; having proceeded gradually, of course, from
its atomic and imperceptible state, into what we understand of visible,
palpable, or otherwise appreciable nebulosity.
Now, the condition of this mass implies a rotation about an imaginary
axis—a rotation which, commencing with the absolute incipiency of the
aggregation, has been ever since acquiring velocity. The very first two
atoms which met, approaching each other from points not diametrically
opposite, would, in rushing partially past each other, form a nucleus for
the rotary movement described. How this would increase in velocity,
is readily seen. The two atoms are joined by others:—an aggregation is
formed. The mass continues to rotate while condensing. But any atom
at the circumference has, of course, a more rapid motion than one
nearer the centre. The outer atom, however, with its superior velocity,
approaches the centre; carrying this superior velocity with it as it goes.
Thus every atom, proceeding inwardly, and finally attaching itself to
the condensed centre, adds something to the original velocity of that
centre—that is to say, increases the rotary movement of the mass.
Let us now suppose this mass so far condensed that it occupies
precisely the space circumscribed by the orbit of Neptune, and that
the velocity with which the surface of the mass moves, in the general
rotation, is precisely that velocity with which Neptune now revolves
about the Sun. At this epoch, then, we are to understand that the
constantly increasing centrifugal force, having gotten the better of the
non-increasing centripetal, loosened and separated the exterior and
least condensed stratum, or a few of the exterior and least condensed
strata, at the equator of the sphere, where the tangential velocity
predominated; so that these strata formed about the main body
an independent ring encircling the equatorial regions:—just as the
exterior portion thrown off, by excessive velocity of rotation, from a
grindstone, would form a ring about the grindstone, but for the solidity
of the superficial material: were this caoutchouc, or anything similar in
consistency, precisely the phænomenon I describe would be presented.
The ring thus whirled from the nebulous mass, revolved, of course, as
a separate ring, with just that velocity with which, while the surface of
the mass, it rotated. In the meantime, condensation still proceeding, the
interval between the discharged ring and the main body continued to
increase, until the former was left at a vast distance from the latter.
Now, admitting the ring to have possessed, by some seemingly
accidental arrangement of its heterogeneous materials, a constitution
nearly uniform, then this ring, as such, would never have ceased
revolving about its primary; but, as might have been anticipated,
there appears to have been enough irregularity in the disposition of
the materials, to make them cluster about centres of superior solidity;
and thus the annular form was destroyed. No doubt, the band was
soon broken up into several portions, and one of these portions,
predominating in mass, absorbed the others into itself; the whole
settling, spherically, into a planet. That this latter, as a planet, continued
the revolutionary movement which characterized it while a ring,
is sufficiently clear; and that it took upon itself also, an additional
movement in its new condition of sphere, is readily explained. The
ring being understood as yet unbroken, we see that its exterior, while
the whole revolves about the parent body, moves more rapidly than its
interior.
When the rupture occurred, then, some portion in each fragment
must have been moving with greater velocity than the others. The
superior movement prevailing, must have whirled each fragment
round—that is to say, have caused it to rotate; and the direction of the
rotation must, of course, have been the direction of the revolution
whence it arose. All the fragments having become subject to the
rotation described, must, in coalescing, have imparted it to the one
planet constituted by their coalescence.—This planet was Neptune. Its
material continuing to undergo condensation, and the centrifugal force
generated in its rotation getting, at length, the better of the centripetal,
as before in the case of the parent orb, a ring was whirled also from
the equatorial surface of this planet: this ring, having been ununiform
in its constitution, was broken up, and its several fragments, being
absorbed by the most massive, were collectively spherified into a
moon. Subsequently, the operation was repeated, and a second moon
was the result. We thus account for the planet Neptune, with the two
satellites which accompany him.
In throwing off a ring from its equator, the Sun re-established that
equilibrium between its centripetal and centrifugal forces which
had been disturbed in the process of condensation; but, as this
condensation still proceeded, the equilibrium was again immediately
disturbed, through the increase of rotation. By the time the mass had so
far shrunk that it occupied a spherical space just that circumscribed by the
orbit of Uranus, we are to understand that the centrifugal force had so far
obtained the ascendency that new relief was needed: a second equatorial
band was, consequently, thrown off, which, proving ununiform, was
broken up, as before in the case of Neptune; the fragments settling into
the planet Uranus; the velocity of whose actual revolution about the Sun
indicates, of course, the rotary speed of that Sun’s equatorial surface at the
moment of the separation. Uranus, adopting a rotation from the collective
rotations of the fragments composing it, as previously explained, now
threw off ring after ring; each of which, becoming broken up, settled into
a moon:—three moons, at different epochs, having been formed, in this
manner, by the rupture and general spherification of as many distinct
ununiform rings.
By the time the Sun had shrunk until it occupied a space just that
circumscribed by the orbit of Saturn, the balance, we are to suppose,
between its centripetal and centrifugal forces had again become so far
disturbed, through increase of rotary velocity, the result of condensation,
that a third effort at equilibrium became necessary; and an annular band
was therefore whirled off as twice before; which, on rupture through
ununiformity, became consolidated into the planet Saturn. This latter
threw off, in the first place, seven uniform bands, which, on rupture,
were spherified respectively into as many moons; but, subsequently, it
appears to have discharged, at three distinct but not very distant epochs,
three rings whose equability of constitution was, by apparent accident,
so considerable as to present no occasion for their rupture; thus they
continue to revolve as rings. I use the phrase “apparent accident;” for of
accident in the ordinary sense there was, of course, nothing:—the term is
properly applied only to the result of indistinguishable or not immediately
traceable law.
Shrinking still farther, until it occupied just the space circumscribed by
the orbit of Jupiter, the Sun now found need of farther effort to restore
the counterbalance of its two forces, continually disarranged in the still
continued increase of rotation. Jupiter, accordingly, was now thrown off;
passing from the annular to the planetary condition; and, on attaining
this latter, threw off in its turn, at four different epochs, four rings, which
finally resolved themselves into so many moons.
27
Planets
Still shrinking, until its sphere occupied just the space defined by the
orbit of the Asteroids, the Sun now discarded a ring which appears to
have had eight centres of superior solidity, and, on breaking up, to have
separated into eight fragments no one of which so far predominated
in mass as to absorb the others. All therefore, as distinct although
comparatively small planets, proceeded to revolve in orbits whose
distances, each from each, may be considered as in some degree
the measure of the force which drove them asunder:—all the orbits,
nevertheless, being so closely coincident as to admit of our calling them
one, in view of the other planetary orbits.
Finally, subsiding to the orbits first of Venus and then of Mercury, the
Sun discarded these two interior planets; neither of which has given birth
to any moon.
Thus from his original bulk—or, to speak more accurately, from the
condition in which we first considered him—from a partially spherified
nebular mass, certainly much more than 5,600 millions of miles in
diameter—the great central orb and origin of our solar-planetary-lunar
system, has gradually descended, by condensation, in obedience to the
law of Gravity, to a globe only 882,000 miles in diameter; but it by no
means follows, either that its condensation is yet complete, or that it may
not still possess the capacity of whirling from itself another planet.
I have here given—in outline of course, but still with all the detail
necessary for distinctness—a view of the Nebular Theory as its author
himself conceived it. From whatever point we regard it, we shall find it
beautifully true. It is by far too beautiful, indeed, not to possess Truth as
its essentiality—and here I am very profoundly serious in what I say. In
the revolution of the satellites of Uranus, there does appear something
seemingly inconsistent with the assumptions of Laplace; but that one
inconsistency can invalidate a theory constructed from a million of
intricate consistencies, is a fancy fit only for the fantastic. In prophecying,
confidently, that the apparent anomaly to which I refer, will, sooner or
later, be found one of the strongest possible corroborations of the general
hypothesis, I pretend to no especial spirit of divination. It is a matter
which the only difficulty seems not to foresee.
These ideas are empirically confirmed at all points. Since condensation
can never, in any body, be considered as absolutely at an end, we are
warranted in anticipating that, whenever we have an opportunity of
testing the matter, we shall find indications of resident luminosity in all
the stellar bodies—moons and planets as well as suns. That our Moon is
strongly self-luminous, we see at her every total eclipse, when, if not so,
she would disappear. On the dark part of the satellite, too, during her
phases, we often observe flashes like our own Auroras; and that these
latter, with our various other so-called electrical phænomena, without
reference to any more steady radiance, must give our Earth a certain
appearance of luminosity to an inhabitant of the Moon, is quite evident.
In fact, we should regard all the phænomena referred to, as mere
manifestations, in different moods and degrees, of the Earth’s feeblycontinued condensation.
If my views are tenable, we should be prepared to find the newer
planets—that is to say, those nearer the Sun—more luminous than
those older and more remote:—and the extreme brilliancy of Venus
(on whose dark portions, during her phases, the Auroras are frequently
visible) does not seem to be altogether accounted for by her mere
proximity to the central orb.
She is no doubt vividly self-luminous, although
less so than Mercury: while the luminosity of
Neptune may be comparatively nothing.
Admitting what I have urged, it is clear that, from the moment of the
Sun’s discarding a ring, there must be a continuous diminution both
of his heat and light, on account of the continuous encrustation of
his surface; and that a period would arrive—the period immediately
previous to a new discharge—when a very material decrease of both
light and heat, must become apparent. Now, we know that tokens of
such changes are distinctly recognizable. On the Melville islands—to
adduce merely one out of a hundred examples—we find traces of ultratropical vegetation—of plants that never could have flourished without
immensely more light and heat than are at present afforded by our Sun
to any portion of the surface of the Earth. Is such vegetation referable to
an epoch immediately subsequent to the whirling-off of Venus?28At this
epoch must have occurred to us our
greatest access of solar influence; and,
in fact, this influence must then have
attained its maximum:—leaving out of
view, of course, the period when the
Earth itself was discarded—the period
of its mere organization.
Again:—we know that there exist
non-luminous suns—that is to say,
suns whose existence we determine
through the movements of others, but
whose luminosity is not sufficient to
impress us. Are these suns invisible
merely on account of the length of
time elapsed since their discharge of a
planet?
And yet again:—may we
not—at least in certain
cases—account for the
sudden appearances of
suns where none had been
previously suspected, by
the hypothesis that, having rolled with encrusted
surfaces throughout the
few thousand years
of our astronomical
history, each of these
suns, in whirling off
a new secondary,
has at length been
enabled to display
the glories of its still
incandescent interior?—
To the well-ascertained fact
of the proportional increase
of heat as we descend into the
Earth, I need of course, do
nothing more than refer:—it
comes in the strongest possible
corroboration of all that I have
said on the topic now at issue.
In speaking, not long ago,
of the repulsive or electrical
influence, I remarked that
“the important phænomena
of vitality, consciousness, and
thought, whether we observe
them generally or in detail,
seem to proceed at least in the
ratio of the heterogeneous.” I
mentioned, too, that I would
recur to the suggestion:—and
29
this is the proper point at which to do so. Looking at the matter, first, in
detail, we perceive that not merely the manifestation of vitality, but its
importance, consequence, and elevation of character, keep pace, very
closely, with the heterogeneity, or complexity, of the animal structure.
Looking at the question, now, in its generality, and referring to the
first movements of the atoms towards mass-constitution, we find that
heterogeneousness, brought about directly through condensation, is
proportional with it forever. We thus reach the proposition that the
importance of the development of the terrestrial vitality proceeds
equably with the terrestrial condensation.
A most unfounded opinion has become latterly current in gossiping
and even in scientific circles—the opinion that the so-called Nebular
Cosmogony has been overthrown. This fancy has arisen from the report
of late observations made, among what hitherto have been termed the
“nebulæ,” through the large telescope of Cincinnati, and the worldrenowned instrument of Lord Rosse. Certain spots in the firmament
which presented, even to the most powerful of the old telescopes, the
appearance of nebulosity, or haze, had been regarded for a long time
as confirming the theory of Laplace. They were looked upon as stars
in that very process of condensation which I have been attempting
to describe. Thus it was supposed that we “had ocular evidence”—an
evidence, by the way, which has always been found very questionable—
of the truth of the hypothesis; and, although certain telescopic
improvements, every now and then, enabled us to perceive that a spot,
here and there, which we had been classing among the nebulæ, was, in
fact, but a cluster of stars deriving its nebular character only from its
immensity of distance—still it was thought that no doubt could exist as
to the actual nebulosity of numerous other masses, the strong-holds of
the nebulists, bidding defiance to every effort at segregation.
Constellation seen in Cochin
Of these latter the most interesting was the great
“nebulæ” in the constellation Orion:—but this,
with innumerable other mis-called “nebulæ,”
when viewed through the magnificent modern
telescopes, has become resolved into a simple
collection of stars.
Now this fact has been very generally understood as conclusive
against the Nebular Hypothesis of Laplace; and, on announcement of
the discoveries in question, the most enthusiastic defender and most
eloquent popularizer of the theory, Dr. Nichol, went so far as to “admit
the necessity of abandoning” an idea which had formed the material
of his most praiseworthy book. Many of my readers will no doubt be
inclined to say that the result of these new investigations has at least
a strong tendency to overthrow the hypothesis; while some of them,
more thoughtful, will suggest that, although the theory is by no means
disproved through the segregation of the particular “nebulæ,” alluded
to, still a failure to segregate them, with such telescopes, might well
have been understood as a triumphant corroboration of the theory:—
and this latter class will be surprised, perhaps, to hear me say that even
with them I disagree. If the propositions of this Discourse have been
comprehended, it will be seen that, in my view, a failure to segregate
the “nebulæ” would have tended to the refutation, rather than to the
confirmation, of the Nebular Hypothesis.
Through what we know of the propagation of light, we have direct
proof that the more remote of the stars have existed, under the forms
in which we now see them, for an inconceivable number of years.
So far back at least, then, as the period when these stars underwent
condensation, must have been the epoch at which the mass-constitutive
processes began.
30
Of course, it will be immediately objected that
since the light by which we recognize the nebulæ
now, must be merely that which left their surfaces
a vast number of years ago, the processes at present observed, or supposed to be observed, are,
in fact, not processes now actually going on, but
the phantoms of processes completed long in the
Past—just as I maintain all these mass-constitutive processes must have been.
LaPlace’s original idea seems to have been a compound of the true
Epicurean atoms with the false nebulæ of his contemporaries; and
thus his theory presents us with the singular anomaly of absolute truth
deduced, as a mathematical result, from a hybrid datum of ancient
imagination intertangled with modern inacumen. Laplace’s real strength
lay, in fact, in an almost miraculous mathematical instinct:—on this he
relied; and in no instance did it fail or deceive him:—in the case of the
Nebular Cosmogony, it led him, blindfolded, through a labyrinth of
Error, into one of the most luminous and stupendous temples of Truth.
distances, and attended by seventeen moons assuredly, but very
probably by several others—is now to be considered as an example
of the innumerable agglomerations which proceeded to take
place throughout the Universal Sphere of atoms on withdrawal of
the Divine Volition. I mean to say that our solar system is to be
understood as affording a generic instance of these agglomerations,
or, more correctly, of the ulterior conditions at which they arrived.
Let us now, expanding our conceptions, look upon each of these
systems as in itself an atom; which in fact it is, when we consider it
as but one of the countless myriads of systems which constitute the
Universe. Regarding all, then, as but colossal atoms, each with the
same ineradicable tendency to Unity which characterizes the actual
atoms of which it consists—we enter at once upon a new order of
aggregations. The smaller systems, in the vicinity of a larger one,
would, inevitably, be drawn into still closer vicinity. A thousand
would assemble here; a million there—perhaps here, again, even
a billion—leaving, thus, immeasurable vacancies in space. And if
now, it be demanded why, in the case of these systems—of these
merely Titanic atoms—I speak, simply, of an “assemblage,” and not,
as in the case of the actual atoms, of a more or less consolidated
agglomeration:—if it be asked, for instance, why I do not carry
what I suggest to its legitimate conclusion, and describe, at once,
these assemblages of system-atoms as rushing to consolidation in
spheres—as each becoming condensed into one magnificent sun—
my reply is that μελλοντα ταυτα—
Our solar system, consisting, in chief, of one sun, with sixteen planets
certainly, and possibly a few more, revolving about it at various
Ancient Urn and Universe modelings
31
I am but pausing, for a moment, on the awful
threshold of the Future. For the present, calling
these assemblages “clusters,” we see them in the
incipient stages of their consolidation. Their absolute consolidation is to come.
We have now reached a point from which we behold the Universe as a
spherical space, interspersed, unequably, with clusters. It will be noticed
that I here prefer the adverb “unequably” to the phrase “with a merely
general equability,” employed before. It is evident, in fact, that the
equability of distribution will diminish in the ratio of the agglomerative
processes—that is to say, as the things distributed diminish in
number. Thus the increase of in-equability—an increase which must
continue until, sooner or later, an epoch will arrive at which the largest
agglomeration will absorb all the others—should be viewed as, simply, a
corroborative indication of the tendency to One.
And here, at length, it seems proper to inquire whether the ascertained
facts of Astronomy confirm the general arrangement which I have
thus, deductively, assigned to the Heavens. Thoroughly, they do.
Telescopic observation, guided by the laws of perspective, enables us to
understand that the perceptible Universe exists as a cluster of clusters,
irregularly disposed.
Clusters and assemblages
The “clusters” of which this Universal “cluster of clusters” consists, are
merely what we have been in the practice of designating “nebulæ”—
and, of these “nebulæ,” one is of paramount interest to mankind. I
allude to the Galaxy, or Milky Way. This interests us, first and most
obviously, on account of its great superiority in apparent size, not only
to any one other cluster in the firmament, but to all the other clusters
taken together. The largest of these latter occupies a mere point,
comparatively, and is distinctly seen only with the aid of a telescope.
The Galaxy sweeps throughout the Heaven and is brilliantly visible to
the naked eye. But it interests man chiefly, although less immediately,
on account of its being his home; the home of the Earth on which he
exists; the home of the Sun about which this Earth revolves; the home
of that “system” of orbs of which the Sun is the centre and primary—
the Earth one of sixteen secondaries, or planets—the Moon one of
seventeen tertiaries, or satellites. The Galaxy, let me repeat, is but one
of the clusters which I have been describing—but one of the mis-called
“nebulæ” revealed to us—by the telescope alone, sometimes—as faint
hazy spots in various quarters of the sky. We have no reason to suppose
the Milky Way really more extensive than the least of these “nebulæ.” Its
vast superiority in size is but an apparent superiority arising from our
position in regard to it—that is to say, from our position in its midst.
However strange the assertion may at first appear to those unversed in
Astronomy, still the astronomer himself has no hesitation in asserting
that we are in the midst of that inconceivable host of stars—of suns—of
systems—which constitute the Galaxy. Moreover, not only have we—
not only has our Sun a right to claim the Galaxy as its own especial
cluster, but, with slight reservation, it may be said that all the distinctly
visible stars of the firmament—all the stars Visible to the naked eye—
have equally a right to claim it as their own.
There has been a great deal of misconception in respect to the shape
of the Galaxy; which, in nearly all our astronomical treatises, is said
to resemble that of a capital Y. The cluster in question has, in reality, a
certain general—very general resemblance to the planet Saturn, with its
encompassing triple ring.
32
Instead of the solid orb of that planet, however,
we must picture to ourselves a lenticular star-island, or collection of stars; our Sun lying excentrically—near the shore of the island—on that
side of it which is nearest the constellation of the
Cross and farthest from that of Cassiopeia. The
surrounding ring, where it approaches our position, has in it a longitudinal gash, which does,
in fact, cause the ring, in our vicinity, to assume,
loosely, the appearance of a capital Y.
We must not fall into the error, however, of conceiving the somewhat
indefinite girdle as at all remote, comparatively speaking, from the
also indefinite lenticular cluster which it surrounds; and thus, for mere
purpose of explanation, we may speak of our Sun as actually situated
at that point of the Y where its three component lines unite; and,
conceiving this letter to be of a certain solidity—of a certain thickness,
very trivial in comparison with its length—we may even speak of
our position as in the middle of this thickness. Fancying ourselves
thus placed, we shall no longer find difficulty in accounting for the
phænomena presented—which are perspective altogether.
WHY
If, with a telescope of high space-penetrating power, we carefully
inspect the firmament, we shall become aware of a belt of clusters—of
what we have hitherto called “nebulæ”—a band, of varying breadth,
stretching from horizon to horizon, at right angles to the general course
of the Milky Way. This band is the ultimate cluster of clusters. This
belt is The Universe. Our Galaxy is but one, and perhaps one of the
most inconsiderable, of the clusters which go to the constitution of this
ultimate, Universal belt or band.
33
The appearance of this cluster of clusters, to our eyes, as a belt or band, is altogether a perspective phænomenon
of the same character as that which
causes us to behold our own individual and roughly-spherical cluster,
the Galaxy, under guise also of a belt,
traversing the Heavens at right angles
to the Universal one. The shape of the
all-inclusive cluster is, of course generally, that of each individual cluster
which it includes.
Just as the scattered stars which, on looking from
the Galaxy, we see in the general sky, are, in fact, but a
portion of that Galaxy itself, and as closely intermingled
with it as any of the telescopic points in what seems
the densest portion of its mass—so are the scattered
“nebulæ” which, on casting our eyes from the Universal
belt, we perceive at all points of the firmament—so, I
say, are these scattered “nebulæ” to be understood as
only perspectively scattered, and as part and parcel of
the one supreme and Universal sphere.
Belt of player piano music
spheres
Universe of Stars
No astronomical fallacy is more untenable, and none has been more pertinaciously adhered to, than
that of the absolute illimitation of the Universe of Stars.
34
The reasons for limitation, as I have already assigned them, à priori,
seem to me unanswerable; but, not to speak of these, observation
assures us that there is, in numerous directions around us, certainly,
if not in all, a positive limit—or, at the very least, affords us no
basis whatever for thinking otherwise. Were the succession of stars
endless, then the background of the sky would present us an uniform
luminosity, like that displayed by the Galaxy—since there could be
absolutely no point, in all that background, at which would not exist
a star.
When speaking of the vulgar propensity to regard all bodies on
the Earth as tending merely to the Earth’s centre, I observed that,
“with certain exceptions to be specified hereafter, every body on the
Earth tended not only to the Earth’s centre, but in every conceivable
direction besides.” The “exceptions” refer to those frequent gaps
in the Heavens, where our utmost scrutiny can detect not only no
stellar bodies, but no indications of their existence:—where yawning
chasms, blacker than Erebus, seem to afford us glimpses, through the
boundary walls of the Universe of Stars, into the illimitable Universe
of Vacancy, beyond.
Camouflage and heavens
My question, however, remains unanswered:—Have we any right to
infer—let us say, rather, to imagine—an interminable succession of the
“clusters of clusters,” or of “Universes” more or less similar?
I reply that the “right,” in a case such as this, depends absolutely upon
the hardihood of that imagination which ventures to claim the right.
Let me declare, only, that, as an individual, I myself feel impelled to the
fancy—without daring to call it more—that there does exist a limitless
succession of Universes, more or less similar to that of which we have
cognizance—to that of which alone we shall ever have cognizance—at
the very least until the return of our own particular Universe into Unity.
We comprehend, then, the insulation of our
Universe. We perceive the isolation of that—
of all that which we grasp with the senses. We
know that there exists one cluster of clusters—
a collection around which, on all sides, extend
the immeasurable wildernesses of a Space to
all human perception untenanted.
35
If such clusters of clusters exist, however—and
they do—it is abundantly clear that, having had
no part in our origin, they have no portion in
our laws. They neither attract us, nor we them.
Their material—their spirit is not ours—is not
that which obtains in any part of our Universe.
They could not impress our senses or our souls.
Among them and us—considering all, for the
moment, collectively—there are no influences
in common. Each exists, apart and independently, in the bosom of its proper and particular
God.
somewhat too discursively from point to point of my topic, let
me suggest that I do so in the hope of thus the better keeping
unbroken that chain of graduated impression by which alone the
intellect of Man can expect to encompass the grandeurs of which
I speak, and, in their majestic totality, to comprehend them.
So far, our attention has been directed, almost exclusively, to a
general and relative grouping of the stellar bodies in space. Of
specification there has been little; and whatever ideas of quantity
have been conveyed—that is to say, of number, magnitude,
and distance—have been conveyed incidentally and by way of
preparation for more definitive conceptions. These latter let us
now attempt to entertain.
In the conduct of this Discourse, I am aiming less at physical than
at metaphysical order. The clearness with which even material
phænomena are presented to the understanding, depends very little,
I have long since learned to perceive, upon a merely natural, and
almost altogether upon a moral, arrangement. If then I seem to step
Monks with atoms , each God
36
Totality
Now let us conceive of an ellipse. At one of the points
mentioned, which are the foci, let us fasten an orange. By an elastic thread let us connect this orange
with a pea; and let us place this latter on the circumference of the ellipse. Let us now move the pea continuously around the orange—keeping always on
the circumference of the ellipse. The elastic thread,
which, of course, varies in length as we move the pea,
will form what in geometry is called a radius vector.
Now, if the orange be understood as the Sun, and the
pea as a planet revolving about it, then the revolution
should be made at such a rate—with a velocity so
varying—that the radius vector may pass over equal
areas of space in equal times. The progress of the pea
should be—in other words, the progress of the planet
is, of course,—slow in proportion to its distance from
the Sun—swift in proportion to its proximity. Those
planets, moreover, move the more slowly which are
the farther from the Sun; the squares of their periods of revolution having the same proportion to each
other, as have to each other the cubes of their mean
distances from the Sun.
Fluxus
The wonderfully complex laws of revolution here described, however, are not to be understood as obtaining in our system alone.
They everywhere prevail where Attraction prevails. They control
the Universe. Every shining speck in the firmament is, no doubt, a
luminous sun, resembling our own, at least in its general features,
and having in attendance upon it a greater or less number of planets,
greater or less, whose still lingering luminosity is not sufficient
to render them visible to us at so vast a distance, but which,
nevertheless, revolve, moon-attended, about their starry centres, in
obedience to the principles just detailed.
In many works on Astronomy I find it distinctly stated that the laws
of Kepler are the basis of the great principle, Gravitation. This idea
must have arisen from the fact that the suggestion of these laws by
Kepler, and his proving them à posteriori to have an actual existence,
led Newton to account for them by the hypothesis of Gravitation,
and, finally, to demonstrate them à priori, as necessary consequences
of the hypothetical principle. Thus so far from the laws of Kepler
being the basis of Gravity, Gravity is the basis of these laws—as it
is, indeed, of all the laws of the material Universe which are not
referable to Repulsion alone.
The mean distance of the Earth from the Moon—that is to say, from
the heavenly body in our closest vicinity—is 237,000 miles. Mercury,
the planet nearest the Sun, is distant from him 37 millions of miles.
Venus, the next, revolves at a distance of 68 millions:—the Earth,
which comes next, at a distance of 95 millions:—Mars, then, at a
distance of 144 millions. Now come the eight Asteroids (Ceres, Juno,
Vesta, Pallas, Astræa, Flora, Iris, and Hebe) at an average distance
of about 250 millions. Then we have Jupiter, distant 490 millions;
then Saturn, 900 millions; then Uranus, 19 hundred millions; finally
Neptune, lately discovered, and revolving at a distance, say of 28
hundred millions.
I have stated a mathematical fact; and, without comprehending it in
the least, we may put it to use—mathematically. But in mentioning,
even, that the Moon revolves about the Earth at the comparatively
trifling distance of 237,000 miles, I entertained no expectation of
giving any one to understand—to know—to feel—how far from the
Earth the Moon actually is. 237,000 miles!
37
Antiwar veterans gathering for Guerilla theatre march
The thought of such a phænomenon cannot well be said to startle the mind:—it palsies and appals it. Not unfrequently we task our imagination
in picturing the capacities of an angel. Let us fancy such a being at a distance of some hundred miles from Jupiter—a close eye-witness of this
planet as it speeds on its annual revolution. Now can we, I demand, fashion for ourselves any conception so distinct of this ideal being’s spiritual
exaltation, as that involved in the supposition that, even by this immeasurable mass of matter, whirled immediately before his eyes, with a velocity
so unutterable, he—an angel—angelic though he be—is not at once struck into nothingness and overwhelmed?
At this point, however, it seems proper to suggest that, in fact, we have been speaking of comparative trifles. The distance of the planet Neptune
from the Sun has been stated:—it is 28 hundred millions of miles; the circumference of its orbit, therefore, is about 17 billions. Let this be borne in
mind while we glance at some one of the brightest stars.
Archangel
and dragon
There are, perhaps, few of my readers who have not crossed the Atlantic ocean; yet how many of them
have a distinct idea of even the 3,000 miles intervening between shore and shore? I doubt, indeed,
whether the man lives who can force into his brain the most remote conception of the interval between one milestone and its next neighbor upon the turnpike.
Between this and the star of our system, (the Sun,) there is a gulf of space, to convey any idea of
which we should need the tongue of an archangel. From our system, then, and from our Sun, or
star, the star at which we suppose ourselves glancing is a thing altogether apart:—still, for the moment, let us imagine it placed upon our Sun, centre over centre, as we just now imagined this Sun
itself placed upon the Earth.
38
Ceasing to wonder at the space between star and star in our own or in any
particular cluster, let us rather turn our thoughts to the intervals between
cluster and cluster, in the all comprehensive cluster of the Universe.
Light proceeds at the rate of 167,000 miles in a second—that is, about
10 millions of miles in a minute, or about 600 millions of miles in an
hour:—yet so far removed from us are some of the “nebulæ” that even
light, speeding with this velocity, could not and does not reach us, from
those mysterious regions, in less than 3 millions of years. This calculation,
moreover, is made by the elder Herschell, and in reference merely to those
comparatively proximate clusters within the scope of his own telescope.
There are “nebulæ,” however, which, through the magical tube of Lord
Rosse, are this instant whispering in our ears the secrets of a million of ages
by-gone. In a word, the events which we behold now—at this moment—in
those worlds—are the identical events which interested their inhabitants
ten hundred thousand centuries ago. In intervals—in distances such as this
suggestion forces upon the soul—rather than upon the mind—we find, at
length, a fitting climax to all hitherto frivolous considerations of quantity.
Poe’s homes, London, Philadelphia, Charlottesville, New York City, Baltimore, Boston
Our fancies thus occupied with the cosmical distances, let us take
the opportunity of referring to the difficulty which we have so often
experienced, while pursuing the beaten path of astronomical reflection,
in accounting for the immeasurable voids alluded to—in comprehending
why chasms so totally unoccupied and therefore apparently so needless,
have been made to intervene between star and star—between cluster
and cluster—in understanding, to be brief, a sufficient reason for the
Titanic scale, in respect of mere Space, on which the Universe is seen to
be constructed. A rational cause for the phænomenon, I maintain that
Astronomy has palpably failed to assign:—but the considerations through
which, in this Essay, we have proceeded step by step, enable us clearly
and immediately to perceive that Space and Duration are one. That the
Universe might endure throughout an æra at all commensurate with the
grandeur of its component material portions and with the high majesty of
its spiritual purposes, it was necessary that the original atomic diffusion be
made to so inconceivable an extent as to be only not infinite.
It was required, in a word, that the stars should
be gathered into visibility from invisible nebulosity—proceed from nebulosity to consolidation—
and so grow grey in giving birth and death to unspeakably numerous and complex variations of
vitalic development:—it was required that the stars
should do all this—should have time thoroughly
to accomplish all these Divine purposes—during
the period in which all things were effecting their
return into Unity with a velocity accumulating in
the inverse proportion of the squares of the distances at which lay the inevitable End.
Throughout all this we have no difficulty in understanding the absolute
accuracy of the Divine adaptation.
Not only is this Divine adaptation, however, mathematically accurate,
but there is that about it which stamps it as divine, in distinction from
that which is merely the work of human constructiveness. I allude to the
complete mutuality of adaptation. For example; in human constructions
a particular cause has a particular effect; a particular intention brings to
pass a particular object; but this is all; we see no reciprocity. The effect
does not re-act upon the cause; the intention does not change relations
with the object. In Divine constructions the object is either design or
object as we choose to regard it—and we may take at any time a cause for
an effect, or the converse—so that we can never absolutely decide which
is which.
39
The
senses
and the
artic
To give an instance:—In polar climates the human frame, to maintain its animal heat, requires, for
combustion in the capillary system, an abundant supply of highly azotized food, such as train-oil. But
again:—in polar climates nearly the sole food afforded man is the oil of abundant seals and whales.
Now, whether is oil at hand because imperatively demanded, or the only thing demanded because the
only thing to be obtained? It is impossible to decide. There is an absolute reciprocity of adaptation.
Guerilla
Theatre plot
The pleasure which we derive from any display of human ingenuity is in the ratio of the approach to
this species of reciprocity. In the construction of plot, for example, in fictitious literature, we should
aim at so arranging the incidents that we shall not be able to determine, of any one of them, whether
it depends from any one other or upholds it. In this sense, of course, perfection of plot is really, or
practically, unattainable—but only because it is a finite intelligence that constructs. The plots of
God are perfect. The Universe is a plot of God.
40
Such are the conditions, continued in perpetuity, which the voice of what some people term
“analogy” calls upon the Fancy to depict and
the Reason to contemplate, if possible, without
becoming dissatisfied with the picture. Such,
in general, are the interminable gyrations beyond gyration which we have been instructed
by Philosophy to comprehend and to account
for, at least in the best manner we can.
Now, since by “analogy” we are led, in the first instance, to these
dreams, it is no more than proper that we should abide by analogy, at
least in some measure, during their development; and that analogy
which suggests the revolution, suggests at the same time a central
orb about which it should be performed:—so far the astronomer was
consistent. This central orb, however, should, dynamically, be greater
than all the orbs, taken together, which surround it. Of these there are
about 100 millions. “Why, then,” it was of course demanded, “do we
not see this vast central sun—at least equal in mass to 100 millions of
such suns as ours—why do we not see it—we, especially, who occupy
the mid region of the cluster—the very locality near which, at all events,
must be situated this incomparable star?” The reply was ready—“It must
be non-luminous, as are our planets.” Here, then, to suit a purpose,
analogy is suddenly let fall. “Not so,” it may be said—“we know that
non-luminous suns actually exist.” It is true that we have reason at
least for supposing so; but we have certainly no reason whatever for
supposing that the non-luminous suns in question are encircled by
luminous suns, while these again are surrounded by non-luminous
planets:—and it is precisely all this with which Mädler is called upon
to find any thing analogous in the heavens—for it is precisely all this
which he imagines in the case of the Galaxy. Admitting the thing to be
so, we cannot help here picturing to ourselves how sad a puzzle the why
it is so must prove to all à priori philosophers.
Abstraction
41
But granting, in the very teeth of analogy and of
every thing else, the non-luminosity of the vast
central orb, we may still inquire how this orb, so
enormous, could fail of being rendered visible by
the flood of light thrown upon it from the 100
millions of glorious suns glaring in all directions
about it.
Upon the urging of this question, the idea of an actually solid central
sun appears, in some measure, to have been abandoned; and speculation
proceeded to assert that the systems of the cluster perform their
revolutions merely about an immaterial centre of gravity common to all.
Here again then, to suit a purpose, analogy is let fall. The planets of our
system revolve, it is true, about a common centre of gravity; but they
do this in connexion with, and in consequence of, a material sun whose
mass more than counterbalances the rest of the system.
Dr. Nichol,says:
“When our greatest telescopes are brought to bear upon them, we
find that those which were thought to be irregular, are not so; they
approach nearer to a globe. Here is one that looked oval; but Lord Rosse’s
telescope brought it into a circle.... Now there occurs a very remarkable
circumstance in reference to these comparatively sweeping circular
masses of nebulæ. We find they are not entirely circular, but the reverse;
and that all around them, on every side, there are volumes of stars,
stretching out apparently as if they were rushing towards a great central
mass in consequence of the action of some great power.”
Al Hubbard with suns on him
Were I to describe, in my own words, what must necessarily be the
existing condition of each nebula on the hypothesis that all matter
is, as I suggest, now returning to its original Unity, I should simply
be going over, nearly verbatim, the language here employed by Dr.
Nichol, without the faintest suspicion of that stupendous truth which
is the key to these nebular phænomena.
And here let me fortify my position still farther, by the voice of
a greater than Mädler—of one, moreover, to whom all the data of
Mädler have long been familiar things, carefully and thoroughly
considered. Referring to the elaborate calculations of Argelander—
the very researches which form Mädler’s basis—Humboldt, whose
generalizing powers have never, perhaps been equalled, has the
following observation:
42
“When we regard the real, proper, or non-perspective motions of the stars, we find many
groups of them moving in opposite directions;
and the data as yet in hand render it not necessary, at least, to conceive that the systems composing the Milky Way, or the clusters, generally,
composing the Universe, are revolving about any
particular centre unknown, whether luminous
or non-luminous. It is but Man’s longing for a
fundamental First Cause, that impels both his
intellect and his fancy to the adoption of such an
hypothesis.”
It is clear, nevertheless, that this general rectilinearity would be
compounded of what, with scarcely any exaggeration, we may term
an infinity of particular curves—an infinity of local deviations from
rectilinearity—the result of continuous differences of relative position
among the multitudinous masses, as each proceeded on its own proper
journey to the End.
I quoted, just now, from Sir John Herschell, the following words, used
in reference to the clusters:—“On one hand, without a rotary motion
and a centrifugal force, it is hardly possible not to regard them as in a
state of progressive collapse.” The fact is, that, in surveying the “nebulæ”
with a telescope of high power, we shall find it quite impossible, having
once conceived this idea of “collapse,” not to gather, at all points,
corroboration of the idea. A nucleus is always apparent, in the direction
of which the stars seem to be precipitating themselves; nor can these
nuclei be mistaken for merely perspective phænomena:—the clusters
Reining in the elements of dancing directions
are really denser near the centre—sparser in the regions more remote
from it. In a word, we see every thing as we should see it were a collapse
taking place; but, in general, it may be said of these clusters, that we can
fairly entertain, while looking at them, the idea of orbitual movement
about a centre, only by admitting the possible existence, in the distant
domains of space, of dynamical laws with which we are unacquainted.
“The tendency to collapse” and “the attraction of gravitation” are
convertible phrases. In using either, we speak of the rëaction of the
First Act. Never was necessity less obvious than that of supposing
Matter imbued with an ineradicable quality forming part of its material
nature—a quality, or instinct, forever inseparable from it, and by dint of
which inalienable principle every atom is perpetually impelled to seek its
fellow-atom. Never was necessity less obvious than that of entertaining
this unphilosophical idea. Going boldly behind the vulgar thought, we
have to conceive, metaphysically, that the gravitating principle appertains
to Matter temporarily—only while diffused—only while existing as Many
instead of as One—appertains to it by virtue of its state of irradiation
alone—appertains, in a word, altogether to its condition, and not in the
slightest degree to itself. In this view, when the irradiation shall have
returned into its source—when the rëaction shall be completed—the
gravitating principle will no longer exist.
It is the poetical essence of the Universe—of the Universe which, in the
supremeness of its symmetry, is but the most sublime of poems. Now
symmetry and consistency are convertible terms:—thus Poetry and Truth
are one. A thing is consistent in the ratio of its truth—true in the ratio
of its consistency. A perfect consistency, I repeat, can be nothing but an
absolute truth. We may take it for granted, then, that Man cannot long
or widely err, if he suffer himself to be guided by his poetical, which I
have maintained to be his truthful, in being his symmetrical, instinct. He
must have a care, however, lest, in pursuing too heedlessly the superficial
symmetry of forms and motions, he leave out of sight the really essential
symmetry of the principles which determine and control them.
Thus it happened that, on announcement of the gradual and perfectly
regular decrease observed in the orbit of Enck’s comet, at every successive
revolution about our Sun, astronomers were nearly unanimous in the
43
opinion that the cause in question was found—that a principle was
discovered sufficient to account, physically, for that final, universal
agglomeration which, I repeat, the analogical, symmetrical or
poetical instinct of Man had predetermined to understand as
something more than a simple hypothesis.
This cause—this sufficient reason for the final ingathering—was
declared to exist in an exceedingly rare but still material medium
pervading space; which medium, by retarding, in some degree, the
progress of the comet, perpetually weakened its tangential force; thus
giving a predominance to the centripetal; which, of course, drew the
comet nearer and nearer at each revolution, and would eventually
precipitate it upon the Sun.
All this was strictly logical—admitting the medium or ether; but
this ether was assumed, most illogically, on the ground that no other
mode than the one spoken of could be discovered, of accounting for
the observed decrease in the orbit of the comet:—as if from the fact that
we could discover no other mode of accounting for it, it followed, in
any respect, that no other mode of accounting for it existed. It is clear
that innumerable causes might operate, in combination, to diminish the
orbit, without even a possibility of our ever becoming acquainted with
one of them. In the meantime, it has never been fairly shown, perhaps,
why the retardation occasioned by the skirts of the Sun’s atmosphere,
through which the comet passes at perihelion, is not enough to account
for the phænomenon. That Enck’s comet will be absorbed into the Sun,
is probable; that all the comets of the system will be absorbed, is more
than merely possible; but, in such case, the principle of absorption must
be referred to eccentricity of orbit—to the close approximation to the
Sun, of the comets at their perihelia; and is a principle not affecting, in
any degree, the ponderous spheres, which are to be regarded as the true
material constituents of the Universe.—
Touching comets, in general, let me here suggest, in passing, that we cannot be far wrong in
looking upon them as the lightning-flashes of
the cosmical Heaven.
The idea of a retarding ether and, through it, of a final agglomeration
of all things, seemed at one time, however, to be confirmed by the
observation of a positive decrease in the orbit of the solid moon.
Figureheads
44
Lagrange showed that, owing to the configurations of the spheroids, the shorter axes of their
ellipses are subject to variation in length; the
longer axes being permanent; and that this
variation is continuous and vibratory—so that
every orbit is in a state of transition, either from
circle to ellipse, or from ellipse to circle. In the
case of the moon, where the shorter axis is decreasing, the orbit is passing from circle to ellipse and, consequently, is decreasing too; but,
after a long series of ages, the ultimate eccentricity will be attained; then the shorter axis
will proceed to increase, until the orbit becomes a circle; when the process of shortening
will again take place;—and so on forever. In the
case of the Earth, the orbit is passing from ellipse to circle. The facts thus demonstrated do
away, of course, with all necessity for supposing
an ether, and with all apprehension of the system’s instability—on the ether’s account.
Handling a smurf
With the idea of a material ether, seems, thus, to have departed
altogether the thought of that universal agglomeration so long
predetermined by the poetical fancy of mankind:—an agglomeration in
which a sound Philosophy might have been warranted in putting faith, at
least to a certain extent, if for no other reason than that by this poetical
fancy it had been so predetermined. But so far as Astronomy—so far as
mere Physics have yet spoken, the cycles of the Universe are perpetual—
the Universe has no conceivable end. Had an end been demonstrated,
however, from so purely collateral a cause as an ether, Man’s instinct
of the Divine capacity to adapt, would have rebelled against the
demonstration. We should have been forced to regard the Universe with
some such sense of dissatisfaction as we experience in contemplating an
unnecessarily complex work of human art.
Creation would have affected us as an imperfect
plot in a romance, where the dénoûment is awkwardly brought about by interposed incidents external and foreign to the main subject; instead of
springing out of the bosom of the thesis—out of
the heart of the ruling idea—instead of arising as
a result of the primary proposition—as inseparable and inevitable part and parcel of the fundamental conception of the book.
What I mean by the symmetry of mere surface will now be more clearly
understood. It is simply by the blandishment of this symmetry that we
have been beguiled into the general idea of which Mädler’s hypothesis is
but a part—the idea of the vorticial in drawing of the orbs.
The plot and the design are layered
45
Dismissing this nakedly physical conception,
the symmetry of principle sees the end of all
things metaphysically involved in the thought
of a beginning; seeks and finds in this origin
of all things the rudiment of this end; and
perceives the impiety of supposing this end
likely to be brought about less simply—less
directly—less obviously—less artistically—
than through the rëaction of the originating
Act.
Whirlpool
Recurring, then, to a previous suggestion, let us understand the
systems—let us understand each star, with its attendant planets—
as but a Titanic atom existing in space with precisely the same
inclination for Unity which characterized, in the beginning, the
actual atoms after their irradiation throughout the Universal
sphere. As these original atoms rushed towards each other in
generally straight lines, so let us conceive as at least generally
rectilinear, the paths of the system-atoms towards their respective
centres of aggregation:—and in this direct drawing together of the
systems into clusters, with a similar and simultaneous drawing
together of the clusters themselves while undergoing consolidation,
we have at length attained the great Now—the awful Present—the
Existing Condition of the Universe.
Of the still more awful Future a not irrational analogy may
guide us in framing an hypothesis. The equilibrium between the
centripetal and centrifugal forces of each system, being necessarily
destroyed upon attainment of a certain proximity to the nucleus of
the cluster to which it belongs, there must occur, at once, a chaotic
or seemingly chaotic precipitation, of the moons upon the planets,
of the planets upon the suns, and of the suns upon the nuclei; and the
general result of this precipitation must be the gathering of the myriad
now-existing stars of the firmament into an almost infinitely less
number of almost infinitely superior spheres. In being immeasurably
fewer, the worlds of that day will be immeasurably greater than
our own. Then, indeed, amid unfathomable abysses, will be glaring
unimaginable suns. But all this will be merely a climacic magnificence
foreboding the great End. Of this End the new genesis described, can
be but a very partial postponement. While undergoing consolidation,
the clusters themselves, with a speed prodigiously accumulative, have
been rushing towards their own general centre—and now, with a
thousand-fold electric velocity, commensurate only with their material
grandeur and with the spiritual passion of their appetite for oneness,
the majestic remnants of the tribe of Stars flash, at length, into a
common embrace. The inevitable catastrophe is at hand.
But this catastrophe—what is it? We have seen accomplished the
ingathering of the orbs. Henceforward, are we not to understand
one material globe of globes as constituting and comprehending
the Universe? Such a fancy would be altogether at war with every
assumption and consideration of this Discourse.
I have already alluded to that absolute reciprocity of adaptation which
is the idiosyncrasy of the divine Art—stamping it divine.
46
Knowledge is true belief, dropping the matter
keeping the ether only
Up to this point of our reflections, we have been
regarding the electrical influence as a something
by dint of whose repulsion alone Matter is enabled to exist in that state of diffusion demanded for the fulfilment of its purposes:—so far, in a
word, we have been considering the influence in
question as ordained for Matter’s sake—to subserve the objects of matter. With a perfectly legitimate reciprocity, we are now permitted to look at
Matter, as created solely for the sake of this influence—solely to serve the objects of this spiritual
Ether. Through the aid—by the means—through
the agency of Matter, and by dint of its heterogeneity—is this Ether manifested—is Spirit individualized. It is merely in the development of
this Ether, through heterogeneity, that particular
masses of Matter become animate—sensitive—
and in the ratio of their heterogeneity;—some
reaching a degree of sensitiveness involving what
we call Thought and thus attaining Conscious Intelligence.
In this view, we are enabled to perceive Matter as a Means—not as
an End. Its purposes are thus seen to have been comprehended in its
diffusion; and with the return into Unity these purposes cease. The
absolutely consolidated globe of globes would be objectless:—therefore
not for a moment could it continue to exist. Matter, created for an end,
would unquestionably, on fulfilment of that end, be Matter no longer.
Let us endeavor to understand that it would disappear, and that God
would remain all in all.
That every work of Divine conception must cöexist and cöexpire
with its particular design, seems to me especially obvious; and I make
no doubt that, on perceiving the final globe of globes to be objectless,
the majority of my readers will be satisfied with my “therefore it
cannot continue to exist.” Nevertheless, as the startling thought of its
instantaneous disappearance is one which the most powerful intellect
cannot be expected readily to entertain on grounds so decidedly
abstract, let us endeavor to look at the idea from some other and more
ordinary point of view:—let us see how thoroughly and beautifully it is
corroborated in an à posteriori consideration of Matter as we actually
find it.
I have before said that “Attraction and Repulsion being undeniably the
sole properties by which Matter is manifested to Mind, we are justified
in assuming that Matter exists only as Attraction and Repulsion—in
other words that Attraction and Repulsion are Matter; there being no
conceivable case in which we may not employ the term Matter and the
terms ‘Attraction’ and ‘Repulsion’ taken together, as equivalent, and
therefore convertible, expressions in Logic.”
Now the very definition of Attraction implies particularity—the
existence of parts, particles, or atoms; for we define it as the tendency of
“each atom &c. to every other atom” &c. according to a certain law. Of
course where there are no parts—where there is absolute Unity—where
the tendency to oneness is satisfied—there can be no Attraction:—this
has been fully shown, and all Philosophy admits it. When, on fulfilment
of its purposes, then, Matter shall have returned into its original
condition of One—a condition which presupposes the expulsion of
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the separative ether, whose province and whose capacity are limited
to keeping the atoms apart until that great day when, this ether being
no longer needed, the overwhelming pressure of the finally collective
Attraction shall at length just sufficiently predominate and expel it:—
when, I say, Matter, finally, expelling the Ether, shall have returned into
absolute Unity,—it will then (to speak paradoxically for the moment)
be Matter without Attraction and without Repulsion—in other words,
Matter without Matter—in other words, again, Matter no more. In
sinking into Unity, it will sink at once into that Nothingness which, to
all Finite Perception, Unity must be—into that Material Nihility from
which alone we can conceive it to have been evoked—to have been
created by the Volition of God.
The heart divine
I repeat then—Let us endeavor to comprehend that the final globe of globes will instantaneously disappear, and that God will remain
all in all.
But are we here to pause? Not so. On the Universal agglomeration and dissolution, we can
readily conceive that a new and perhaps totally
different series of conditions may ensue—another creation and irradiation, returning into
itself—another action and rëaction of the Divine Will. Guiding our imaginations by that
omniprevalent law of laws, the law of periodicity, are we not, indeed, more than justified
in entertaining a belief—let us say, rather, in
indulging a hope—that the processes we have
here ventured to contemplate will be renewed
forever, and forever, and forever; a novel Universe swelling into existence, and then subsiding into nothingness, at every throb of the
Heart Divine?
And now—this Heart Divine—what is it? It is
our own.
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Let not the merely seeming irreverence of this idea frighten our souls
from that cool exercise of consciousness—from that deep tranquillity
of self-inspection—through which alone we can hope to attain the
presence of this, the most sublime of truths, and look it leisurely in the
face.
The phænomena on which our conclusions must at this point depend,
are merely spiritual shadows, but not the less thoroughly substantial.
We walk about, amid the destinies of our world-existence,
encompassed by dim but ever present Memories of a Destiny more
vast—very distant in the by-gone time, and infinitely awful.
We live out a Youth peculiarly haunted by such dreams; yet never
mistaking them for dreams. As Memories we know them. During our
Youth the distinction is too clear to deceive us even for a moment.
So long as this Youth endures, the feeling that we exist, is the most
natural of all feelings. We understand it thoroughly. That there was a
period at which we did not exist—or, that it might so have happened
that we never had existed at all—are the considerations, indeed, which
during this youth, we find difficulty in understanding. Why we should
not exist, is, up to the epoch of our Manhood, of all queries the most
unanswerable. Existence—self-existence—existence from all Time and
to all Eternity—seems, up to the epoch of Manhood, a normal and
unquestionable condition:—seems, because it is.
But now comes the period at which a conventional World-Reason
awakens us from the truth of our dream.
Doubt, Surprise and Incomprehensibility arrive at the same moment.
They say:—“You live and the time was when you lived not. You have
been created. An Intelligence exists greater than your own; and it is only
through this Intelligence you live at all.” These things we struggle to
comprehend and cannot:—cannot, because these things, being untrue,
are thus, of necessity, incomprehensible.
No thinking being lives who, at some luminous point of his life of
thought, has not felt himself lost amid the surges of futile efforts at
understanding, or believing, that anything exists greater than his own
soul. The utter impossibility of any one’s soul feeling itself inferior to
another; the intense, overwhelming dissatisfaction and rebellion at
the thought;—these, with the omniprevalent aspirations at perfection,
are but the spiritual, coincident with the material, struggles towards
the original Unity—are, to my mind at least, a species of proof far
surpassing what Man terms demonstration, that no one soul is inferior
to another—that nothing is, or can be, superior to any one soul—
that each soul is, in part, its own God—its own Creator:—in a word,
that God—the material and spiritual God—now exists solely in the
diffused Matter and Spirit of the Universe; and that the regathering
of this diffused Matter and Spirit will be but the re-constitution of the
purely Spiritual and Individual God.
In this view, and in this view alone, we comprehend the riddles of
Divine Injustice—of Inexorable Fate. In this view alone the existence
of Evil becomes intelligible; but in this view it becomes more—it
becomes endurable. Our souls no longer rebel at a Sorrow which we
ourselves have imposed upon ourselves, in furtherance of our own
purposes—with a view—if even with a futile view—to the extension of
our own Joy.
I have spoken of Memories that haunt us during our youth. They
sometimes pursue us even in our Manhood:—assume gradually less
and less indefinite shapes:—now and then speak to us with low voices,
saying:
but just as it is in your power to expand or to concentrate your pleasures (the absolute amount of happiness remaining
always the same) so did and does a similar capability appertain to this Divine Being, who thus passes his Eternity in
perpetual variation of Concentrated Self and almost Infinite Self-Diffusion. What you call The Universe is but his
present expansive existence. He now feels his life through an infinity of imperfect pleasures—the partial and painintertangled pleasures of those inconceivably numerous things which you designate as his creatures, but which are
really but infinite individualizations of Himself. All these creatures—all—those which you term animate, as well as
those to whom you deny life for no better reason than that you do not behold it in operation—all these creatures have,
in a greater or less degree, a capacity for pleasure and for pain:—but the general sum of their sensations is precisely
that amount of Happiness which appertains by right to the Divine Being when concentrated within Himself. These
creatures are all, too, more or less conscious Intelligences; conscious, first, of a proper identity; conscious, secondly
and by faint indeterminate glimpses, of an identity with the Divine Being of whom we speak—of an identity with
God. Of the two classes of consciousness, fancy that the former will grow weaker, the latter stronger, during the long
succession of ages which must elapse before these myriads of individual Intelligences become blended—when the
bright stars become blended—into One. Think that the sense of individual identity will be gradually merged in the
general consciousness—that Man, for example, ceasing imperceptibly to feel himself Man, will at length attain that
awfully triumphant epoch when he shall recognize his existence as that of Jehovah.
In the meantime bear in mind that all is Life—Life—Life within Life—the less
within the greater, and all within the Spirit Divine.”
THE END.
“There was an epoch in the Night of Time, when a still-existent Being
existed—one of an absolutely infinite number of similar Beings that
people the absolutely infinite domains of the absolutely infinite space.
It was not and is not in the power of this Being—any more than it is
in your own—to extend, by actual increase, the joy of his Existence;
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